Persistence
by deepthoughtz
Summary: Time and space do matter in magic. But sometimes they matter less than they should... Cursed by an ancient power, a madman wakes up in the past, when all those he watched die are alive. Can he escape the reach of Time itself?
1. Stolen Time

**Persistence**

_**Chapter One**_

**Stolen Time **

--

I opened my eyes to white.

There was pain, hot fiery needles lashing all over my body, a sensation more acute than I've felt in some years. The Cruciatus does wonders to your pain tolerance, if you manage to survive it without proceeding to the drooling-at-the-mouth stage. But now, the sheer acuteness of the pain caught me off balance. I breathed deeply, closing my eyes, concentrating on the pain, isolating, ignoring it as I've done so many times before.

Something wasn't right.

I was lying on white sheets, in a room I knew well. Too well. The windows showed a view of the distant mountains in the north, and the cool breeze ruffled my hair. The unique smell of medicinal potions, strong and somewhat pungent, was very familiar – as was the bitter tang of Sleeping potion in my mouth. My hands and chest were swathed in bandages. I could fuzzily see my glasses on the bedside table, and hastily put them on to stop the dizziness that had accompanied my inspection of the room. My movements caught the attention of the mediwitch bustling the Potions cabinet at the other end of the room. Madame Pomfrey came over to me, smiling like she always had whenever I ended up in the Hospital Wing after another of those adventures involving magical beasts and insane wizards, which averaged to once a year at least. She was carrying a goblet in her hands, and her exasperated smile was like home.

My spine was cold, and sweat had sprung upon my forehead.

I remembered nothing of the last month. _Nothing!_

The last thing I remembered was attending her funeral.

I was suddenly more awake than I had been most of my life.

Pollyjuice. Illusion. Hallucinogens, air-borne or ingested with food or drink. Curses that influence the mind? But then the caster should've crippled my reason too, and my thoughts ran clear and unimpeded.

I looked down, my mind a whirl of speculation and anticipation, my senses alert for hints of danger or violence. Then I stopped thinking, had to, for as I looked on my body realization struck with hammering force –

My body wasn't mine, not as I remembered it.

Or it hadn't been mine, for _decades_.

All the wrinkles on my skin were gone. All my scars I had earned in my service had vanished.

It was as if all my years, my age, my whole life had been layered on me, and an artist's brush had carefully removed all the traces of what had been.

..._ Something was terribly wrong._

_--  
_

It was the robes that clinched it, of course. I could've accepted hallucinating about a person for whom I had immense respect, personal and professional. I could've accepted dreaming about the only place that would ever be home to me. I could've accepted that a mind such as mine, broken and lost, would try to heal itself by imagining the place it associated with youth, with love, with whispered dreams of innocence. But I couldn't, wouldn't accept the red and gold that was stifling me. This must be real, me lying abed in the Hospital wing, short and skinny as anything, all of fifteen years old with the gods-damned scars to prove it.

Besides, mad as I definitely was, I wasn't sadistic enough to dream up the thick foulness in that damned goblet. A definite Snape concoction.

Snape.

_Take it... _

Dumbledore.

_You brave, brave man... _

Hermione.

_Books... and cleverness. Oh Harry, be careful! _

Ron. James. Ginny.

_I never gave up on you. Not really. _

You should have, Ginevra. Should have. All it brought... all it always brought was death, wasn't it? A price to pay, for being a hero. For being arrogant enough to think myself a saviour. A price to pay, for living where none had before. You were wrong, Professor. Going into battle knowing you might die was nothing. Knowing you _will_ die was nothing, when it meant safety for all who were in your heart. Watching them die, knowing it was your fault, always yours... I wasn't brave enough, tough enough to endure.

_But now... _

_This time..._

It could be different, this time.

Different, my mind whispered, but how?

Different, I told myself. Everything would be different. I could save them. I knew things... secrets. I could perform spells that'd give people nightmares. I could melt down Hogwarts with all its wards, the finest and most secure piece of magical architecture in the world, given a year to chain my rituals, provided no Dumbledore was there to counter them. I had looked into the abyss and it had shrunk away from me.

_All your skills weren't enough to save them the last time. You are here again... would you watch them die? Bit by bit, rotting and withering, not even knowing who you were? Would you enjoy it?_ The voice again, the treacherous whisper grating in my ears. A muggle psychiatrist had once told me it was the voice of my conscience.

I'd told him my secret... that I had none left. Right before I killed him. Bled him to death, with the whispers urging me on.

It is surprisingly easy to bleed a man to death. You sever his jugular, then hold him upside down, the heart doing all the work... it's the most effective method, really. Easy and quick. Especially if you were a wizard.

_Sectumsempra. Levicorpus._

I'd always known that the potions book would come in useful. At least Snape was good for something, the sonofabitch. Though to be fair, he performed his duties to Albus well.

Oh. He would be alive too, now... if this is the past. Along with... along with all whom I had lost.

I sighed, my occlumency reasserting itself and calming me. I didn't know what to do... what to do now that all my dreams seemed to have come true. The world for a moment seemed strangely skewed, and somehow _wrong _, and I felt as if I was somewhere I shouldn't have been and the universe, very pointedly, was _letting me know_.

I cared little. I needed to know what was going on. I needed to know where and when I was, needed to confirm that all this was real and not feverish dreams conjured by a decidedly demented psyche.

I don't respond well to threats. I never have.

If this was real, if all this was real – then I couldn't even begin to guess how this might have happened. My memory of the immediate past was blank, but I knew time-travel at this scale was impossible. There have been attempts to change the past, but even seeing the past through the Time Winds beyond scant weeks has always ended in failure – and not in a few cases, disaster. It was impossible.

_So they say. So many things they say. So many rules, so many laws, restrictions. So many lies, half-truths, a web of deception that keeps them closeted within their own little society. They deserve this, for they do not dare to face what is real, fearing it might shatter their pretty little illusions. You do not…_

I didn't answer, even in my mind.

But I had to admit, whatever the department had to say about long-range time-travel, I have always had my own suspicions…

_--_

In the deepest, darkest corners of the building that houses the Ministry of Magic, there is a path that leads to hell.

Hell, that was what we called it, we the ones entrusted with the blackest, bleakest magics the Ministry held secret from the public. We who dabbled in the arcane, the forbidden, the feared arts. The ways to crush a body, to fog the mind, to sear the soul – we knew them, we saw them, we lived with them all our waking moments. We were mad, yes, insane. We had to be, working with powers as unknowable as they were old, living where no day existed and the very air reeked of death despite all the purifying charms we installed. Yet we called it Hell.

Deathgate, some had named it. Time's Arch. I'd called it The Great Eye, a rather unsuccessful, not to mention lame attempt for humour given that my colleagues wouldn't have known Tolkien from a _Talkana_ curse. We'd seen it, all of us, though nobody except me more than once. Nobody had wanted to. In a place where your usefulness in uncovering the deepest secrets of the universe was all that mattered, no one in five centuries had tried to research _The Key Of Chronos_. The name _Χρόνος_, of course, was that of the Greek mythic personification of time itself, forged in the beginning of all that was. That was all the clue we had about it, and nobody was quite suicidal enough to dig for more. Nobody except me.

I had little success in the first few years, but it had been like a bait, forever drawing me into deeper webs of power and shadows… offering bits and pieces of puzzles that hinted at something greater, some insight into the order of things in this cold and unjust world. I had followed the trail, for the need to know had _burned_ in me then, a desire that had compelled me to seek out answers. Seek out why I had been _punished_ so, why cast out of the content normality of all the ordinary people who eat and drink and fuck and sleep and don't have to ask why they live still, in a world that feels so pale and spent as ash.

If this was real, if all this was real… another chance, but why, why now – something, it had something to do with my research, maybe a ritual gone wrong, or gone _right_…

I didn't know anything. _Yet_.

I would. That's what I'm good at. I'd figure things out.

If all this is a lie… but I knew it wasn't, somehow. It wasn't. I knew it in my heart.

And if this is like a dream, then it must end as all dreams end…

So as I laid back on the hospital bed and gave back Madame Pomfrey the goblet with a smile as falsely bright as my existence, I couldn't help but think I really should enjoy this... this bit of stolen time...

--

**Notes**: I do not own any and all characters and places that you recognize from the Potterverse. Any other character/setting, unless stated explicitly otherwise, is mine.


	2. The Holes in My Head

**Persistence**

_**Chapter Two**_

**The Holes In My Head**

--

I looked out through the window, assessing, calculating. I knew more about the knots of time than most - it was my field of expertise. Time was my job, had been my life for years. Dealing with old, bizarre rituals that invoked the power of reality, of time itself - it leaves its signs on you. The most mundane one I had was the ability - the knack of always getting the time right. I remember the first time ... I was heading the Aurors then, trying to catch the few Death Eaters still active, hunting for works in the field. That was when I met Wentworth, and heard about the deeper divisions within the ministry. The _Syr_ I wasn't excited about, a bunch of half-crazy maniacs who researched old and ancient powers everyone else had forgotten; but the cobra division grabbed my imagination. Looking after the more dangerous aspects of law enforcement, handling responsibilities so dangerous even the Aurors shied from them. True danger. Combat, instead of sitting on a desk and shuffling bits and pieces of people's lives around... Shacklebolt had his doubts, but it sounded like a dream come true. I dreamed of better things, those days.

The first time I accompanied the cobra section overseas on a mission, the Commander's incompetence left me blindfolded and left for dead underground for a month, without food or water. Starved, dehydrated, bound I'd sat in the underground cavern. Waiting for a sound in the black damp quiet. For twenty-nine days, until the rescue came. I'd counted every second, had known every moment even though no light nor blessed air from above had reached me. That was… will be… 2002. I'd left Gin with her mother. She was expecting.

My third year of being married. Third and last. I still remember fighting my way through the fog that surrounded my mind and the peculiar exhaustion that comes from sitting still. Remember praying, to no god for I knew none, but to providence. To see her, once again, to feel her. To see our son. Remember devising a thousand ways to kill the buffoon who'd left me behind.

He died of a heart-bursting curse, thankfully releasing himself from the burden of a painful Wizengamot trial. A full week after I'd returned home to the loving arms of family, friends, overenthusiastic reporters and crazy fans. It was a clear case of suicide, so everyone said, the guilty Auror not forgiving himself leaving the Chosen One to die alone. If anyone suspected, they were wise enough to keep their mouth shut.

Thus I found my darkness in Albania, just as Tom once had fifty years ago. The Chosen One found a new meaning of life, a new way to make it right, a way to save the innocents from those who would do them harm, with malice or wilful ignorance. Just like a red-eyed youth who had promised himself power and justice, in the beginning of his flight of death.

History is funny like that.

--

There was a _Syr_, in the fifteenth century, who'd transported himself to five years back in a disaster that involved, or so office gossip said, a broken time-turner, a witch assistant, and an Aztec sex ritual. True or not, we did get a list of laws and instructions informing us about the things to do in the case of an _unintentional temporal displacement_ when we joined the division. It basically consisted of : keep your head down, don't do _anything_ that might challenge the timeline, and contact the division. _We'll take care of you_.

I knew better.

Oh, they _would_ take care of me. The situation I was finding myself in- it was unique, it had to be. Not a simple temporal displacement of matter, but a real _soul transmission_ - the spirit riding the time winds to back, back, thirty years ago... the theory was impossible, the possibilities breathtaking. And it was the only thing that could've happened, for the only other option involved someone transporting me through thirty years and replacing my younger self with me, de-aging me in the process, all under Albus' broken nose. Besides serving no purpose I could see, it was impossible.

And the department would want to know **how**, once they believed my story, unlikely as it sounded. They wouldn't believe me when I said I had no idea. They would break me and rip me apart, cell by cell, molecule by molecule, to know how I'd managed to disengage my _self_ from the flesh safely without the benefit of an anchor, a horcrux, and how I'd managed to stitch it together with another body, however familiar. The mystery of time-travel was almost secondary to this, this knowledge that could unlock the mystery of the human soul itself. They would use every means they can to unravel it, and obliterate me in the process.

I should know. I've done it myself.

Not the division, then.

But I still needed to know exactly when and why I was. I had to avoid... complications. I knew enough about timelines to know exactly how dangerous a time-travel of this scale was. The fact that I remembered what had happened to me in my fifth year as clearly as if all of it had happened just yesterday wouldn't be any help at all if I skewed the order of events to any significant degree. I needed to know. I needed to learn, to assimilate, to _adapt_. I needed _time_.

Funny how you can get thirty years' worth and still not have enough.

--

"Do you think he's alright?" Ron asked nervously, as we walked down the corridor. He was fidgeting, like he always did whenever he was uncertain or was trying very hard not to think about something. "I mean, he just collapsed, sudden as anything. I didn't notice anything wrong with him during the feast. Did you?"

"You might've noticed _something_ if you weren't busy eating every scrap of food piled on the table, Ronald", I snapped, and regretted it immediately. He wasn't the only one occupied during the feast, what with the horrible Ministry toad (no, I shouldn't call someone that on the basis of their appearance, but _really_, she even behaved like one) and the Sorting Hat's song and all. Maybe I should've kept more of an eye on Harry, I thought guiltily. He really was under a lot of stress right now, wasn't he? What with You-Kno - no, _Voldemort_ being back and Diggory's death and the trial and half the country calling him liar while the other half believed him insane... no wonder he fainted even before he reached the common room. That kind of pressure would've killed me. I know what stress can do to a person, I topped the basic Psy course I took in the holidays after all. I shouldn't have made the remark about the food either, I realized. Ron is sensitive to their _financial_ status, and this kind of remark would only make him think I was making a dig at his family. At that moment I wanted nothing except to tell him how meaningless it was to me just how many Galleons his father earned each month, but it wasn't the time or the place for that. Besides he wouldn't have understood anyway- patients like him never believe there's anything wrong with them even when you make it clear as day. I'd have to be _subtle_, I realized as we entered the Hospital Wing in silence.

He was lying on the bed, his body covered in bandages, the last rays from the setting sun reflecting from his glasses. He looked up at us and smiled. We rushed to him, ignoring Pomfrey's clucking.

"What happened to you?" I demanded. "What are these bandages for? You didn't cut yourself-" I stopped, recognising the sheer ridiculousness of the question. I doubted even Harry could manage to cut himself up so severely, falling on a hard stone floor.

_Maybe he cut himself, to cope with the stress_, I thought suddenly, _the textbook case of self-loathing manifested by a cutting ritual_- I pushed the thought away. Harry wouldn't do that. He was tougher than that. _Better_ than that. Yet... yet... I asked, suddenly anxious, knowing I had no real reason to be,"When did it happen? Not in num- not in- not when we were staying with the old crowd?" I fished lamely.

He smiled, faintly, his eyes now sharp and bitter. "Old injuries, Hermione", he said softly. "This summer..."

Oh. _Oh_.

The next time I see those Dursleys... a knee-inversion curse might be just the thing. And a homesickness hex, with a forgetfulness jinx just for variety. At the very least, that big pig would get kicked off his job.

Ron's face, I could see, was darkening slowly. Yes, I sighed silently. He's got it.

--

By the time they were gone, I had a throbbing headache. Seeing people you had once loved and had seen die, melting slowly, once again so full of life and still keeping your face smooth, your mind clear- that took effort, and occlumency was never as easy to me as it seemed to be to Snape and Albus. But I had persevered, and they seemed to accept the total bullshit I fed about the Dursleys, if Hermione's expression and Ron's bellowings were anything to go by. It was easier than I'd thought it would be, but then again it should be easy for someone in my position to garner sympathy from the people. That was why Fudge had feared me and had tried to use me, believing I had any ambition whatsoever in moving up the political ladder. Fool. I am _better_ than that.

So. My closest friends wouldn't be so suspicious now if I somehow acted a little out of place... out of time. They'd chalk it up to stress, fear - or, if everything else fails - to domestic abuse. Maybe they would watch me that little bit closer, that little bit more intently for signs of imbalance, but I'd be damned if I can't squeeze out time away from two busy fifth-years for my_ activities_. The gamble had been worth it.

Now all I have to do is to find out how I got here- and if I can go... _forward_, to my time. I have to know what did I do in the space of a month to accomplish _this_. I have to figure out where the hell these cuts are from, for I had nothing like this in my timeline. I have to  er, to fix... to fix the holes in my head.

And, of course, I have to face Ginny...

_Her face, frozen in the rictus of a scream, her skin now white with age and peeling away_

_James, James, my baby boy, no no no _

--

James was born in July.

I remember me and my wife, a year or so into our marriage, talking in our cozy little bedroom in our little home by the quiet sea. We were married, we were happy... we were so sure of the bright future. We wanted a family. _Children_. She wanted to make up names, and we played at it, laughing. James Sirius, I'd proposed, for the first son we would have. Lily Rose, she said, for the first daughter- after her gran Rosemary. We agreed on Albus then, after the greatest wizard any of us had ever known... so we went, into the night. I remember. There was no fear in us , no sense of what was to come. The war had come, and we'd paid in blood... yet it was over, and we remained. Safe. Happy. Forever.

I didn't know, couldn't have known what would happen in two years' time. The night they died, my wife and my son and my two best friends, their bodies rotting from within, their flesh aging centuries in a single night. I remember sitting with her ravaged face melting in my hands, the stench of death so heavy I could barely breathe. So they died, Hermione and Ron, Ginny and James. The night I died, too, in all the ways that mattered. The night I went back for the resurrection stone. I remember.

July thirty-first, 2003.

Happy birthday, Harry...


	3. Dreaming, Darkly

**Persistence**

_**Chapter Three**_

**Dreaming, Darkly**

--

We lie on the bed, spent, her flame-coloured hair spilling on the gold sheets. A cool breeze blows around us, the night air bringing with it just a hint of salt. She looks up at me and smiles, and I can feel her eyes in my heart. We kiss, again and again, not pressing need but gently, so gently. She bites my ear and whispers my name. "Harry."

I take her face in my hands. Her eyes shine red in the darkness, her smile stretching and showing her fangs. Her skin wrinkles, then cracks. Black veins stretch from the corners of her mouth. I grip her neck, trying to choke, to crush her beneath me.

Darkness descends, drowning me, smothering, choking. Descends like thunder. Descends like death.

--

The Hospital Wing looked different at night, not the cheerful hub of activity it was in the day. I looked upon the beds, white and silent and empty. My ragged breathing was the only sound I could hear. Even the portraits were silent. I slipped off the covers and moved to the window, silent as a snake.

The moon was full.

Werewolves, it is said amongst the more knowledgeable healers, suffer from a mental as well as physical ailment. A werewolf's saliva carries a virus that transmits through contact with blood, it is true. The virus attacks the muscle and the bones, changing their structure and making them more flexible for the final transformation that completes the rising of the beast. But what is _not_ so well-known is that the virus preys upon the mind, changing parts of the neocortex that control our powers of imagination. The world changes to the bitten as they themselves are changed, their perceptions becoming sharper, their minds fierce and merciless. A werewolf that has given in to the inner beast without degenerating into a mindless monster is almost superhuman. It does not need or conform to the laws that the mere preys have set up for their own protection.

Neither do I.

And the moon now calls for blood, a seductive whisper that shivers its way through my marrow, a song of blood and death and battle to come.

The werewolves have their beasts. I have my shadow within.

--

We apparated into the grounds of the Diggory manor. I could feel the wards protesting, the shivering web of spells trying to find a place to discharge their destructive power. I continued to murmur, coaxing, soothing the power into submission. I could feel Lucius and Mulcibur spreading out to the sides, Bella close behind me as I walked towards the front gates. They swung open as we approached, a gesture of welcome to guests approved by the Master of the Family. The wards settled back as we entered.

They met us in the front room, Amos and Mertha. A blue burst of magic came from the left, and I stepped back, knowing Bella perfectly capable of blocking it. I concentrated instead on the ruddy-faced wizard to the right who was already shouting out the killing curse. I sidestepped again, knowing no useful shielding object was near and needing none, then whispered a command that forced its way through the air and his hasty shield and threw him against the wall. His wand clattered to the floor. My next thought swirled purple around him, pinning him to the ground.

He stared at me, impassive. Crabbe had to be punished, I noted mentally. He had neglected to inform me that Amos Diggory was an occlumens. Fortunately I had no pressing need to extract information.

"Do you know why I am here?" I asked him. He continued staring at me, his brown hair slick with blood. I waited, patient, until he spat out his answer. "You killed my only son. You are here to kill me." His eyes unwillingly sought out the unconscious woman at the other end of the room.

"I could have dismantled your wards, and I chose not to. I could have killed you, had I wanted to. I chose not to." I waited again, watching his face becoming a bloodless grey. Then I smiled, slowly.

"I would_ never_. _Never_!" He hissed, as I had always known he would. He would not, uncoerced. I glanced at Bella. She licked her lips.

"No. No. No. I wouldn't be yours, Voldemort! Not even for her life!" He was shouting as Bella began to twirl her wand around her fingers and gave him a smile. "It's not her _life_ you should be worried about," she told him, her eyes gleaming with demented anticipation.

Both the Diggorys were screaming when I walked out.

Despite what others think of my actions, I receive no pleasure from tasks such as these. These things simply have to be done, to achieve the noble goal my ancestor had set for his heir a millennium ago. The time has finally come for the pure to rule above those of inferior stock, as it always should have been. And Amos would be _ideal_ for my plans, the one man they would never suspect of aiding Slytherin's Heir. But I could never count on a person such as him being completely under my control. Confronted with his wife's very sanity at my mercy, he would not even _wish_ to break my curse. No mistake would I make, this time... no repeat of the catastrophe fourteen years ago.

I looked at the moon, full and bright as gold. The screams went on behind me, male and female voice intertwining, as I thought upon follies and scars...

--

The pack had run itself to exhaustion by dawn.

I stretched myself, cracking the coating of mud and grime that had settled over my body during the course of the night. My body seemed sore, as it always did these days, much worse than it used to be even five years ago. Still, no damage seemed to be permanent, and except for the sheer bone-weariness that had me in its grip, I was in better shape than I had any right to be after such a wild night. I rose to my feet, looking down the river, and froze.

And remembered.

The body was lying on the riverbed, face down. I turned him over and found him breathing, if shallowly. The right side of his head was a sight, a thick congealed mass of blood, where I'd bashed him with all my strength last night, for a reason that was even now just coming back to me. Then I turned and found the reason watching.

She was as tall as me, and naked beneath the coat of mud. She wasn't beautiful at all, except the dazzling grace that comes of the nature itself, the beauty of a leaf swaying in the wind or the breath of a Dragonfly on a dewdrop an autumn morning. I didn't know her name.

She had run with us last night, till the blood of the pack was up and they had demanded her. She had tried to escape, as they always did- through playfulness or sheer terror, and the pack had tried to hunt her down. Only I, sane and in control of my wolf, had objected... I'd come upon the werewolf trying to force himself on her, and out of some misguided human impulse had tried to help her run away. The resulting fight had more than sapped me of my remaining strength.

She was watching me now, from a distance of twenty yards. For a moment her eyes flashed with an unreadable expression, but my legillimency wasn't up to deciphering it. Then she turned and walked away.

I watched her vanish into the trees. Then I turned and watched the werewolf instead. Finally I peered into the dense forest surrounding us, hoping to catch a glimpse of civilization with my sharpened senses. Nothing but trees, as far as I could see. Nor did the river bring any sign of a human habitation with it.

Sighing, I walked back to the werewolf and hoisted him painfully over my shoulder. He would probably be able to help me with my _enquiries_... but I was in no condition for a side-apparition. And leaving him here in the forest, alone and unaided, would almost certainly mean his death…

Damn you for getting me into these situations, Albus.

I started the long and painful walk downriver, towards the east. Towards the rising sun.


	4. My Friends, My Soldiers

**Persistence**

_**Chapter Four**_

**My Friends, My Soldiers**

--

The Great Hall looked just as I had remembered it, the four houses busy eating at their tables, the noise a welcoming memory from my past. Some looked upon as I entered the Hall, Ron and Hermione behind me, and the whispers started. It was like a ripple of silence that washed over the students then, leaving them silent and unmoving, staring at me. I knew, could imagine the thoughts that accompanied those glances, few concerned, some hateful and the others cautiously curious. The Boy-Who-Lived, the winner of the precious Triwizard Tournament who had claimed to be a spectator to the return of the Dark Lord. Who had faced and fought through a trial held before the Wizengamot. Who had spent his first night of this term in the Hospital Wing, perhaps ill, perhaps due to reasons much more sinister. The boy who was reputed to be insane. I had endured these glances before, long ago.

I hadn't realized that they would hit me so hard.

I looked up at the staff table, and it was so hard to keep my composure even though I saw exactly what I had expected beforehand. I looked upon the Professors, now silent, as if in some expectation. I remembered Minerva, as prim as she ever was, and the plump kindly Pomona, the dashing-in-a-limpy-kind-of-way Sinistra, the wizened Grubbly-Plank, the little charm-Master Flitwick. I saw Umbridge, as toadlike as I remembered, her pouchy eyes bulging in distaste in a manner that stirred my memories. A Cruciatus I could've managed at that moment, easily, thinking of the courtroom and the helpless victims being dragged away by the dementors as she had gleefully watched. But angry as I was, hateful as I was, I could not continue glaring at her – for to her right sat Albus Dumbledore.

He sat at the centre of the table, on his long golden–backed chair that Minerva had later eschewed in favour of a less imposing one. He wore a purple robe, with a matching hat, and even in daylight the silvery stars on both twinkled to my eye. He looked aged and weary, the look of a man engaged in a bitter and uncertain war, but he did not look defeated. In the face of the man I had once seen as my idol, my mentor I could now see someone ruthless and kind, a man who knew how to control the world as efficiently as he controlled himself, and applied his knowledge without hesitating mercy for that was the only road he saw that led to the survival of others.

Once I had been his man. Once. I remembered being his, body and soul, more devoted than any power–hungry follower Voldemort had ever had. I remembered the moment when I had realized that his plan could lead to victory only at the cost of my death. I remembered being even a little glad, for I could never _choose_ to die – my choices had made me what I was, and suicide has never been among them, though sacrifice was. I supposed he had known that too, and had made my choice for me.

I wondered why that choice had seemed perfect then. I wondered what had changed my view of the man I still loved. I wondered why I wondered.

--

We sat together, Ron and Hermione to my right and Neville sitting opposite. I looked at Neville for a moment, remembering the details of a shy, quiet boy who had become so confident a wizard in his later years. Organising the students in his seventh year and the act of killing Nagini had bestowed the mantle of a hero upon him, and he had handled it well. Better than me, probably. That memory made me suppress a frown, for those were circumstances I could no longer allow to happen. I had had to acknowledge the very real possibility that I might never be able to leave this world, and even though few memories of my past remained potent enough to trouble me still, one fact was clear. Nobody would miss me in my world. I had cloistered myself in my own little hole after my tragedy; I'd put up walls against any private intrusion. Few knew me inside the Ministry in my years after leaving the Aurors, and only Teddy was someone I'd seen around with any sort of regularity. I must have left my body lifeless and decaying, and the prospect of going back wasn't appealing. After all, I'd left few to remember me as a man and not the legend, and none who might mourn me. But to remain here, with thirty-odd years of life and a chance to set it all right again, without the senseless killings and pain this time, was a powerful temptation – especially since the former owner of the body showed no intention of showing up again. Knowledge is the most powerful weapon in any war, and it would've been the understatement of all time to say that my knowledge of the past and the future could help a great deal. To do it my way though – that would mean change in the timeline itself, something that had to be done very delicately – for it was frighteningly easy to screw up.

I tried to brush aside my convoluted plots and listen to what my friends were saying. Hermione was complaining loudly about the quality of Umbridge's teaching, in the low tone she used when she was trying to say something unpleasant about someone in a position of authority but who really deserved it. "She's limiting our potentials, you know, Ron! Can you believe it, Harry? She tells us to read on defense theory from Wilbert Slinkhard! Not that," she amended, "there's anything wrong with learning theory – but couldn't she have chosen something a little more _practical_? How are we supposed to deal with Death Eaters if she doesn't have us practice dueling and spells? She simply said we'd know what we need to know! Harry, you're the best in DADA, maybe if you tell her –"

I cut her off with a wave of my hand. "She wouldn't listen, Hermione. She works for Fudge, after all. I got the impression in the trial that she thinks I'm an insane freak with a penchant for attention. She'd probably tell me there's nothing to fear in the outside world, and Voldemort isn't out there trying to kill us – Merlin's beard, Ron, try to get used to the name, damnit."

"But Harry, we can't be going without any form of spellcasting practice at all! We'd be sitting ducks if we're attacked!"

"I don't plan on being a sitting duck, Hermione." I smiled grimly. "I'll have to learn better spells. We'll all have to, if we ever want to fight. You'll help me, won't you? Ron?"

"Of course we'll help you, Harry. What kind of question is that?" Hermione said firmly, answering for both of them since Ron, his mouth still full of pie, could only nod enthusiastically. I tried hard not to grin as her face turned thoughtful. "I wish we could do something to help the others, though – it's not fair to them if they can't learn how to fight back only because the Ministry is being stupid." Oh yes, she was getting an idea. _Her_ idea, and she would bring it up to my very obvious surprise and initial reluctance. In time, I was sure. In time. Things would fall in their places.

Now, I thought, I had to do something about tonight. The room of requirement could wait.

--

"I wonder if Hagrid is all right," Hermione said as we started for the Charmsn classroom after leaving the Great Hall. "Grubbly-Plank is a good teacher, of course, but I miss him, kind of..."

"We all do," Ron said gruffly. "I hope he's all right, whatever Dumbledore has him doing. And Madame Maxime. What do you reckon –" He looked at me.

"Giants, I think," I whispered in answer to the unfinished question. "They supported Voldemort in the last war, didn't they? Hagrid and Madame Maxime are both half-and-halfs, so he probably sent them to convince them to fight for us, I think."

"That's what I thought too," Hermione said. "I just hope he's being careful."

"Yeah, me too. Me too." I tried to think a way to bring the topic up. "Listen, you remember third year? How –" I lowered my voice, "Snuffles got to our dorm?"

"What about that?" Ron asked for both of them.

"Well," I sighed, affecting a look of hurried impatience, "think about it. If he could get to our dorm so easily, why not a Death Eater? We need security. More security, at least at night."

"Hogwarts is the most secure place Britain, Harry. Maybe the most secure place in the world." Hermione looked at me, strangely. "We have Dumbledore looking out for us. And Snuffles was – what he was, that was why he could get inside the castle, even your dorm – and then only because Neville left the passwords lying around. Anybody else would have had much more trouble." There she went, she and her trust in authorities.

"My point stands, Hermione. We have Death Eater–wannabes in the school, you know it. Malfoy would jump at a chance to get me in trouble, and more than that." Maybe not totally true, but consistent with my opinion about him as far as she knew. "We got into their common room when we were twelve. Want to bet they can't get to ours now? Hogwarts is defended against wide-scale intrusion, not against assassins. Dark wizards have got in year after year, and Dumbledore didn't even know. We need to beef up our security. We need _wards_." Maybe not language a fifteen–year old would use, but I got my point across. I could see her thinking. Ron was frowning, too.

"Do you want to go to Dumbledore and tell him to set up some more wards around our dorm?" Hermione asked finally.

I shook my head. "If Umbridge somehow got to know about it, she'd count it as blatant favouritism on Dumbledore's part. And it'll give credence to her story about me being a paranoid maniac. I mean," I asked as sarcastically as I could manage, "what fifteen-year old needs a _ward_ of all things around his dorm?"

"So what do you think we should do?" Ron asked. "I can tell you've got something planned." Clever. He could always tell.

"I did some reading in the Summer. I ordered a book by owl," I said seeing Hermione's questioning look. "I couldn't practice at the Dursleys, obviously. But I tried once or twice at Number Twelve. I got the hang of some spells. And don't you start, Hermione. You know as well as I do how bullshit that Underage Regulation is."

"I wasn't going to say anything," Hermione still gave me a disapproving look, but her interest in the book was winning out just as I had expected. "You have the book?"

"Sure. It's buried under all that junk though. I'll give it to you tomorrow. We need to find some place for practice. I think you really should use something tonight though, maybe a _Protego Totalum_. I can do mine and Ron's. I should've thought of it earlier."

Hermione nodded, frowning a little. "Okay, Harry. I can try a _Cave Inimicum_, too... we should look for an abandoned classroom or something, where we wouldn't be noticed. Look at the time, we really should hurry before Flitwick starts!"

--

All the others were already snoring by the time we'd returned to the dorm. That was good, because I remembered very well the scene with Seamus, and I wasn't really in the mood for another roll of that particular dice. Ron was looking haggard.

"The teachers are trying to kill us, I swear, Harry... I mean, saw how both Flitwick and McGnagall just couldn't shut up about the OWls? We still have a full year, for Merlin's sake! What was the point in giving us all that homework right now? We need to know how to defend ourselves, not –" He said angrily, "how to turn a teacup into a hedgehog!" Nice to see he was taking my point seriously, but I had a sneaking suspicion that it was as much about laziness as about anything else. That would have to go, if I had anything to say about it. Just because he survived once did not at all mean he would again, but I meant to improve his chances as much as I could. He had a point, though. The school curriculum was designed for students trying to become full wizards, not for soldiers of war. That kind of training could damage their power in other ways, and it would. I knew it in my bones.

Still, they would have a _great_ teacher. And a wizard impaired in everyday spells was still better than a wizard dead. That would have to be enough.

"You want to do the spells now?" Ron asked me. I nodded, and took out my wand.

"I'll use the _Protego Totalum_ spell, I think. And a proximity alarm– they're simple, but dead useful."

"What do they do?"

"Well, if someone breaches the ward physically from the outside, it'll buzz really loudly. It'll break once you get out of the ward though. The Totalum is for spells, and will hold for most of the spells a student might cast, not an Unforgivable or anything like that– and I'll tie a Blinding spell with it, so if anyone casts something at your bed it'll flash really bright and hopefully blind them. I don't think it'll hold against a Death Eater, but I haven't had the time to practice the more advanced ones. I'll do yours first, Ron, go lie down– "

"Okay." Ron pulled himself onto the bed. His back was to me for just a moment, but that was enough.

"I'm feeling really sleepy." He yawned. I faked one myself.

"Yeah, so am I. People aren't meant to do all that homework on just their second day at school." I cast the wards, and watched the _Dormio_ settle. He was snoring in moments, as I had known he would. I had had a lot of practice with _that_ particular Sleeping spell over the years.

He would sleep over the whole night. There were none else in the dorm who might want to wake me up at night for whatever reason. I cast a _Confundus_ around my bed, just in case. Now came the more difficult part...

"_Illusio Corpora_." I whispered, fixing in my mind an image of a short and scrawny boy sleeping on my bed. I watched and concentrated as the image grew real in my mind, taking on details, the glasses askew, a hand stretched out carelessly, the white sheet covering the legs... and the boy appeared, an illusion sleeping in my place. It looked good enough for the night, but I knew that I really would have to return before my dorm-mates woke up.

I went to the window and gauged the distance to the ground, sighing. This would be the _really_ hard part.

--

The day had been leadened and rainy, and the grass was damp under my silent feet in the night. Climbing down the walls hadn't been fun. The rain had left the wall rather slippery, and you don't climb a hundred feet of slimy wall straight down in the dark, or at least not easily and not unless you were completely mad. Falling would've made things _really_ inconvenient. For the hundredth time, I wished for my broom. But flying away might not be the best of ideas, since I still had little idea about the wards – and flying in to the grounds with a broom would've been suicide. I headed for the lake.

The water was calm when I arrived, no sign of life stirring in the black depths. I strengthened the Disillusionment charm on me, just in case. Then I touched the tip of my wand to the water and inscribed a circle.

"_Congelo_. _Congelo_. _Ambitus!_"

Ice formed in the shape of a smooth disc, a meter wide. It bobbed in the water, gently.

"_Relevo_." I cast at myself, then stepped onto the disc as the lightening charm took effect. A flick of my wand sent the disc moving through the calm water, sending ripples all around.

"_Sedo_." I tried to steady myself and hoped fervently that I wouldn't fall into the lake. Harry Potter being rescued by mermen during nighttime jaunt across the lake wasn't a story that would bring any further peace to my life. In the cold damp dark, with a Lightening charm on me in the rising wind and standing on a thin disc of ice, I began to navigate my way towards the train station.


	5. These Bloody Hands

**Persistence**

_**Chapter Five**_

**These Bloody Hands**

--

The house looked calm enough as I apparated into the grounds.

The Ministry has many safe houses scattered around the country. Most are in muggle places, where the ordinary Wizards aren't usually around to observe things that the Ministry constantly maintains aren't there. Muggle-repelling charms are wonderful, and the modifications made by the Unspeakables provide a more solid security profile then almost anything else. Still, for the really _big _secrets, we need other places. Remote places, far away from populated areas, where something really messy (like an exploding house, or spattered remains of things that weren't recognizable to begin with) doesn't end up photoed and front-paged in the Daily Prophet. Places such as the Waltham forest, a ten thousand years old ancient woodland thousands of acres wide, nearly fifth of the area magical and shunned by all but the Ministry explorers and the Unspeakables.

The safe houses in the old forest now known as Epping were run by the Department of Mysteries, and were mere hearsay and less than that to most Ministry Officials. Then again, I hadn't been most Ministry Officials. Kingsley had always leveled with me, something that had entitled him to my respect. He had confided in me, telling me things that protocol had forbidden him to. Trusting me never to take advantage of the secrets for my own purposes.

I tried hard to think how I wasn't abusing his trust. Not really. All of it felt so _wrong_- but I was sure he would have approved, had he known.

I kept busy, telling myself that. Maybe that was why it took me so long to notice the dementors.

--

The dementors are known as one of the first magical creatures that had originated after mankind. Griffins and phoenixes, chimeras and dragons are all known to have existed even before Atlantis, and the fossils we always steal from the confounded muggle archaeologists conform to our knowledge of them as beings of ancient and primitive magical origin, when wizards weren't around to shackle the Spirits of Power and harness them for the source of their spells. Not the dementors.

There had been a land of wizards once, who had delved into powers better left alone, to save their nation from the invading empires. They had raised mountains, grown forests, torn apart the entire land to hide themselves- and they had succeeded so well that even after all these centuries no one is sure how exactly they had died out. The Illyrians are now as much a myth as the ancient Atlantians, maybe more- at least we can guess what had happened to Atlantis. All you can see in Albania now are ruins and less than ruins, memories of stone that remind us of a world vanished like the morning mist. But there is a rumour that says that Illyria had left a legacy... that the webs of stealth and darkness had settled into their very souls, leaving little but empty husks behind. The first of the dementors were born thus, some say. They had lost their souls, and they _hunger_-

I should have known they were there, from the first. I should have known. But the same occlumency that helped to keep me sane and controlled had interfered with my sensitivity, and in the steady calm of an occlumens I hadn't noticed the frosty chill that now threatened to settle over my mind. I should've been taken by surprise as they swooped down from the cover of the trees, three of them, black shapes mixing in the starless dark so well I had to strain my eyes to see them. They were only ten feet from me, and gaining, but the shadow had surged within me already. It was alert, always, and it had smelled the air and sampled the night and had known that something was wrong. My wand blurred into my hand, my mind clearing-

And the chill came, a spear of jagged painful frost in my brain, death and remembrance fighting in my mind's vision as more shapes black as night burst forth into my blurring view all around me as if from empty air-

_She looks up at me. Her eyes are full of pain, yet they dull as I watch. Dull with age, her eyelashes turning white, the brown in her eyes becoming mottled and flecked with something Other-_

_"Please," she croaks. "It hurts-"_

_"Shh. Shh." I try to soothe her. My breaths come ragged._

I stagger.

_"James-" She chokes. "James." _

_"He's sleeping. He's all right. He's safe." I tell her. Truth, oh god. Truth. He wouldn't wake again. Nothing could harm my boy. Not anymore._

I am on my knees, somehow. I do not feel the ground under me. It's as if I'm falling, not down but inward-

_"See- him- hurts-"_

_I take out my wand. Her skin tries to peel away as I caress her face._

_"Hold on. Don't try to speak. The pain will go away soon. Soon." The despair sharpens, and weaves a bloody spear through my heart. I touch the wand to her neck, oblivious to the silent watchers at the door._

_The rage blossoms, erupts. Blossoms in deathly silence. Blossoms green._

The gaping mouths I see, see through the tears that blur my eye. My heart is empty, and the soulless swoop down scenting weakened prey. They dig up the memories, all the blood and tears and the restless Dead that hound my dreams. They tell me the price of resisting. They sing of lonely despair.

My senses flicker, as the past and the present merge -

_"Lily, take Harry and go! I'll hold him off -"_

_"Take me, kill me instead -" _

_Green light, green light, green..._

And the memory of a memory, the shades on that fateful night, risen from the Sunless Lands answering the call of the Hallow. They swarm around me, all whom I have lost, all the death and blood and pain that had precluded the final triumph. The ones that I have lost...

Lost, but not forever.

Hope. I had hope. I hoped one day to finally board the train.

But not today, and not in their hands.

I had work, yet...

_"Expecto Patronum!" _

The spell surged forth, a blinding wave of white. The black shapes scattered, pursued by the white stag. Prongs hounded them, chased them ruthlessly and without tiring. They were gone in seconds, and the stag finally turned towards me-

And I saw its eyes. Knowing eyes, blazing eyes.

_Death's eyes_

There is an old legend in the Epping. The legend of a white stag, that heralds destruction and death.

Magic has strange rules, and sometimes even the caster is taken by surprise. I shivered, and it had nothing to do with the magical chill that was even now slowly dissolving away.

--

The front door was hanging from the hinges, the aged wood torn and shattered. It screamed of things gone wrong, but I had known that already.

The first things I noticed were the bodies.

The front room was littered with debris, bits and pieces of furniture. Five corpses lay on the floor, scattered around the room, and there could be no doubt that they were corpses. One I could clearly recognize as a female, half of her left breast still attached to her body. Others, I couldn't even begin to guess. Bloody and mauled lumps of flesh, that was all they were, their blood pooling still all around the room. I recognized the claw marks that had been left on the walls. I recognized the reckless abandon in the bloodshed, the sheer animal _wildness_ of it. The scene wasn't anything I hadn't seen before.

_Werewolves_.

I'd had to deal with several of the rogue packs after the war had wound out. Hunting them had been my job for a time, job I couldn't have trusted to the younger Aurors who had so much more to live for. So I had observed the warm blood still trickling from the dead woman's jugular and known it for the sign that it was. A fresh corpse, half-finished, abandoned in order to hunt better or more difficult prey.

The rush of wind, when it finally came, found me harder prey than it had expected.

_"Arresto Momenta!" _My wand blurred in a semicircle, sending a wave of power surging forward.

You don't spear a werewolf, not even with silver. The sharp end goes in and does the job, yes, but the time it takes for the werewolf to die is sufficient enough for it to eviscerate you with considerable ease. Only people like Lockhart could've thought up something like that- what an experienced hunter working alone does is to meet the first charge, crush it, and when the beast pauses on basic animal instinct to better gauge the distance to the disillusioned prey- _strike_! A Killing Curse does an admirable job, even considering the power needed- conjuring a silver object needs considerable concentration not easily mastered at a moment's notice.

Of course, all that is assuming that there is only one werewolf. The werewolves smell and hear sharply enough to know exactly where you are, even under a sight-masking spell. Any curse visible or uttered aloud gives your position away to any pack member watching, and even a silent and invisible spell can't really hide from their superhuman senses. A hunter hunting a pack without backup is just a hunter about to be dead. You don't match three or four unbeatably fast magical creatures with simply human reflexes. They shred you apart sooner or later, however quickly you throw your spells around.

Unless you can use spells that _really_ don't limit the damage. Or you expect the attack.

Unfortunately for them, it was both this time...

The other two now circled me, joining the first who had shaken off the freezing curse, the eyes mad with bloodlust and animal rage, their nostrils flaring to locate the prey. I looked at the three shaggy half-beasts, the hands and legs elongated, lean muscles straining and quivering with suppressed tension. The full moon had been the night before, and the features of the beast were still sharp in the faces.

There had been a time in the future when I would've hesitated to kill something still recognizable as human. That time will not be again.

They leaped at me, coordinating their attacks as naturally as only beasts hunting together can do. The front one leaped high, the one to the left crouching and breaking off escape. I could feel the one at my back coming fast at my jugular.

The anti-apparition wards were already down, and that helped. Still, they were dead either way. They had died when they had failed to kill me the first time.

They were already recovering from the rush, looking for the vanished prey. I stood back from the door a step, and they all whirled round, facing the faint footstep, facing me. I could see them tensing, the hindlegs crouching down, ready to spring-

The spell had risen in my mind, and the magic now eagerly answered.

A diagonal slash to the down and left with my wand, followed by one to the right. The Norse rune Kauna or the rune Kenaz, symbol for the living fire.

_"Inferno."_

The fire blossomed within me, a scorching heat trying to escape through my blood and veins and my blistering fingers- then past me, past my smoldering wand and _burning_ its way through the air and smashing through the walls, a tidal wave of searing heat so blue as to be almost invisible-

The shockwave propelled me backward, and I apparated mid-motion, not the smooth and silent twirl but a violent leap to a safer distance that deposited me in a disoriented heap on the ground. I rolled and got up halfway, crouching, ready for any threat as the house burned. The safety wards were still active, and I could see the fires slowly subside under their influence.

The 'pop's came, loud and clear in the silent night as only the flames crackled. I was expecting them, and yet again strengthened the Disillusionment charm. Five men, two still coughing, black soot covering all the white masks. They all looked around, expecting attack, and then the two apparated away. The other three searched the area, looking for the threat.

The sight confirmed what I already knew. I had miscalculated. Badly.

--

The Ministry holds some very powerful magical objects, legacies from our ancestors who hadn't known many of the strange rules that limits our power in this age. Trinkets and old odds-and-ends from the old Shamans whose principles of operation aren't properly understood to this day. One such little artifact, for example, is the centre of the underage magic tracking system spread over the whole island. Most of such artifacts are kept underground, where none but the Division can see them.

Sometimes though, for one reason or another, some of these may be kept in Ministry-approved safe houses that the Department of Mysteries run all over the country. It may be because the artifacts get affected by the smothering wards in the Division, or maybe they interfere with the security measures. Or maybe because the Division thinks them unimportant enough. Those go to the safe houses.

One of the very many things I hadn't known when I had been fighting against Voldemort was how hard he had hit the Ministry before overtaking. He had hit us hard, hard and bloody. One of the biggest scandals in the Division was about how a cache of magical items had been stolen from the safe house at Epping, about a week into the start of my fifth year at Hogwarts. The Ministry investigation had concluded it as something completely disconnected to the mysterious attacks all around the country. They had believed it right until their Dark Magic Trackers had been deactivated a year later using some of those, rendering the Aurors helpless and the Unspeakables inconceivably paranoid. The disappearence of the Official who had given the original order to move the artifacts hadn't helped at all.

I'd thought about doing the stealing myself, as soon as I'd gotten my bearings. It was bound to mess up the Dark Lord's plans, and I had believed myself capable enough of finding out the secrets of the trinkets. The night was my chance at getting to those, hopefully undetected, a smooth job in-and-out. The dementors had spoiled it, and the werewolves. It looked as if this time Voldemort was a little more impatient.

This could be bad. This could be _very_ bad for my plans.

I had to have more information. I needed to get my hands on one of the Death Eaters.

Hopefully before the others got back with reinforcements. Or the Syr moved in.

I took aim, carefully, at the masked figure closest to me. All of them were peering about, looking for the source of the fire. I prepared myself to let the Disillusion spell drop, as it would be only a burden to constantly power in a case the fight got... complicated. My hood would probably be enough in the night. The other two Death Eaters were further wide to my right and left, and no spell suggested itself that was wide enough to take care of all three. Not with certainty, against alert wizards who could shield.

On the other hand, keeping things simple can go a long way in these things.

_"Stupefy!"_ I shouted, putting power into the spell. A jet of brilliant red burst forth from my wand, lifting the Death Eater into the air even as he turned. The other two whirled round, and twin blue curses sailed towards me as I fixed the location in my mind and stepped forward-

The world reoriented itself, the masked figure grunting as I drove my knee to the small of his back with all my strength. The apparition had been silent, but the other masked wizard had seen me and was already turning-

_"Scindo!"_ He shouted at me, the blue streak coming out from his wand. The one I'd kicked was still staggering from the blow as I shoved him towards the curse and spun away as his shoulder was sliced open in a spray of blood.

_"Percutio."_ I whispered. The invisible beam hissed though the air and he formed a _Protego_, hastily. I focussed on the thin shield, still shivering from the Percussion charm, and called up the hate and anger burning through me still-

_"Avada Kedavra!"_

The green light lit up his mask, the wind rushing in my ears, and then the body lay sprawled on the ground.

I wished that I could've seen his face.

The wounded wizard was rising up, his wand hand trembling but still pointed at me, as more 'pop's signaled the new arrivals. I moved fast, closing in to the injured Death Eater, and moved my head aside as a weak spell shot out from his wand. My hand came up, hard, the edge of my palm smashing into his elbow. He dropped his wand and tried for a punch, but my knee was already up and driving at his groin with all the strength that I could master. He groaned in pain in my arms, temporarily subdued, as I ignored the spells coming toward me and concentrated. The apparition tunnel formed, a tight tube of subspace to elsewhere-

_Shift -  
_

I threw the whimpering Death Eater into the ground, where he curled up into a ball. I looked around the clearing, the trees standing high and forbidding on all sides. How fitting that it would all happen it here again (or perhaps before…). How _right_.

"_Subsisto. Subsisto. Confuto Apparatum!_" A wide wave of blue surged from my wand, clear and crackling energy permeating the air and seeping into the very ground. Not the most elegant way to stop Apparition, but it would serve for now.

_Petrificus_. I watched as the paralysis spell took effect, seizing the Death Eater's body into its unrelenting grip and laying him flat on the ground. A gesture and his robe dissolved. His mask followed, splintering with a sharp sound. He tried to cry out for help as a shard drove into his chin.

Naked and helpless, lying paralyzed on the leaves that littered the dark forest ground, he looked pathetic. I circled him, and he tried desperately to follow me with his eyes.

"I want you to realize some things," I said in a voice that was as cold as I could I make it, and it wasn't an effort at all. "I've covered the ground with an anti-apparition ward. Any tracking spell you had in your robe is no longer working. You are alone here with me, and no one, especially your associates, is coming to get you. There will be no… rescue, especially because I will kill you if someone even tries to barge in here. You understand?"

I removed the paralysis from his mouth. He began to sob.

"You understand?" I pressed. I didn't have all night.

"Please, please, don't kill me-"

"Why do you think I'll kill you?" I took off my hood, just to unsettle him that little bit more. The more nervous he is, the easier it would be. For us both.

"You!" There was wonder in his voice as he gasped and choked as the paralysis took hold of him again. "You took us out? _You_? Alone?"

That sounded properly disbelieving. I smiled, showing all my teeth.

"Well, seems to me that I was enough for you three, wasn't I? And I even managed to kill one!"

"Please- please- don't kill me-" The fear was in his eyes again, as I had hoped. Being fifteen-years old made a proper torture inconvenient. "Look, I- I remember you, I was in my final year when you started Hogwarts! Don't you remember me? I'm Everett Whitehall- Ravenclaw-" I snapped his mouth shut with a wave of my hand.

"I'm not going to kill you, for Merlin's sake. I just want to know what you know. I need information. I want to know what you were doing there attacking the safe house. I want to know what your colleagues are busy doing. And you are going to tell me. Then I can remove your memories and I send you to the Aurors. You won't remember a thing."

"No- please- you don't understand-" He choked on tears, pathetically. "I didn't want to do this! I didn't! I- I have a daughter, a little girl- they'd kill her- if I tell you anything, they would know! They'd kill her!"

"They might kill her anyway," I snapped, disgusted. "You don't think you can ever get back to being a Death Eater after being abducted by someone unknown? They'd kill you on sight, thinking you've been turned- or worse yet, a polyjuiced impersonator. Better if you tell me all I know right now, and I assure you that Dumbledore would do his best to retrieve your daughter. Even Voldemort fears him- you think he won't be able to help you if you go to him? Tell me all that you know, and he'll bring you your daughter if she's still alive."

"No. No, I won't betray the Dark Lord! I can't! He would know, and he'd kill her! The Dark Lord always knows!"

"Look, you pathetic excuse for a wizard, you will tell me what I want to know or I'll rip his secrets right out of your mind!" I shouted, finally losing my patience. This wasn't getting as I had expected. Then again, I was new at this torture-for-information business. Hopefully I'd get better with practice.

"You work for Him, don't you," The Death Eater continued as if he hadn't heard me at all, "He sent you to kill Mortimer because he betrayed Him somehow. And He wasn't sure about me- I'll never betray Him! I love my daughter, I'd do anything for her, please-"

I stood back and centred myself, layering my mind with apathetic, unrippled calm. I could feel something inside my soul, the insidious Shadow, worming its way up to the surface of my mind.

I opened my eyes and smiled, and he must've read something in it, for he went still and gasped again, his eyes wide.

"You see," I whispered, squatting close beside him. "Here's what else you need to know. I suppose it's only fair that I tell you." I leaned down, staring at his eyes. He lay still, transfixed, the sweet taste of fear beating fast as his heart to my senses. "I have something inside myself, a shadow, a darkness, even I don't really know. And the fact is," I leaned even closer and whispered in his ear, "it doesn't much care what happens to you or anyone else... it only knows that I want you to tell me something. You _will_ tell me, wizard. Believe it."

I stood and and looked at my wand. The tip sharpened, glinted even in the dark of night. Glinted silver.

I smiled as the world grew more real around me, sharper than the blade I held in my hands.

"I suppose we should start from the legs…"

--

The dorm looked calm enough as I entered, all the students sleeping peacefully. I dispelled the illusion on my bed and looked around. The only audible sound was Ron's snoring, familiar even after so many years.

I looked myself over and frowned at the disturbingly red stain on my right sleeve. I cleaned it with a thought, thankful that I'd noticed it. Memory charming my dorm-mates would've been awkward.

The night had been hectic, and the trip to the Library could've ended in a real disaster if I hadn't taken the Marauder's Map with me when I had left. Not that Filch could've really caught me, but squandering power in the corridors with all the portraits watching would've been really imprudent. Still, I'd gotten away with my trips, both inside and out of the school, and Lady Justice had been served. Two of the bastards were dead, and I had acted as her hand. And the shadow had been satisfied, after what seemed an awfully long time.

I stretched myself over the comfortable sheets, all the worries and wonderings gone for tomorrow.

Justice had been served.

Sleep came, peaceful and without dreams. The sleep of a man who had done all that he could have done, and hadn't faltered in his path.

The sleep of the just.

--

**Note:** The legend of the white stag in the Epping forest exists.


	6. Positions of Authority

**Persistence**

_**Chapter Six**_

**Positions of Authority**

--

I rose from the blackness that tried to hold me fast. The liquid immobility began to recede, its touch viscous and grating harshly against my skin. My eyes opened, burning, and I took in the familiar sight of the Great Hall.

Except it wasn't.

No banners hung from the ceiling, no house tables stood behind me as I turned and looked for them. The Staff table was there, yes, but the silver racks that loomed on all sides were as alien as the bizarre glittering weapons they held. Blades and scimitars, bows and spears, rows and rows of shining metal that promised death. I couldn't see any source of the strange blue-white glow that permeated the room. The ceiling where the familiar night sky should've been simply showed… blackness.

I stood and took a deep breath, and tried to ignore the musty smell. The air reeked of age, of past ages forgotten and buried in dust.

My circumstances were quite clear, quite, and I murmured aloud just to convince myself that little bit more.

I am dreaming.

"In a way."

I whirled round, cursing as my hand snaked through my sleeve and came up empty. I didn't have my wand.

He stood at the door, the door which was now wide open even though I hadn't heard a single creak. The doors themselves were different, I noticed, intricate gold carvings on ivory that now blazed white. Shadows walked at the figure's feet, sliding and weaving on the dull bronze floor. He came forward, and the light dimmed as if to avoid touching him.

"I know you." And I did. The beard, the robes, the half-moon glasses... the realization struck. But the _eyes_… oh god, the eyes.

"Yes. But not in the way you think." The same gentle voice. I stared at the eyes that I remembered once twinkling, and darkness stared back.

"Who are you?" My voice was harsh, and I tried to tell myself that it didn't tremble at all.

"You want my _name_?" The laugh echoed around me as if reflected from far away. "You would not be able to hear it even if I told you, human wizard. It is beyond you, still."

"Where am I?" Real eloquence. But a valid question, still.

"Dreams, Harry. In your dreams."

"This isn't a dream." I should've been more careful, facing an unknown on unfamiliar territory, wandless and alone. But I've always been brasher than what's good for me. "Who are you and where are we?"

"This is… the Hall of Bones." He said the words carefully, as if tasting the sounds, then nodded. "Yes, that is as close as it can be described to someone like you."

"The Hall of Bones." I said, disbelieving. Even for wizards, who frankly had a terrible taste for naming places, this was a little too pretentious. "And you? You aren't _him_."

He smiled, and came forward. The light glanced along his face, revealing the familiar features. "Call me Christopher. It will do for now." He smiled indulgently. "Drink?"

"Are you related to Professor Dumbledore?" I had a thousand questions, but somehow this one seemed the most important.

"I have few relatives." He answered. "Come and sit with me, Harry."

"I'd rather stand, thanks."

"Your choice. Of course, that is what this meeting is about."

"What?" Apparently making cryptic statements goes with being a one-and-a-half century old bearded wizard – or, I amended, looking like one. "About me standing here?"

"Choice, actually. A choice you must now make, to be precise."

"Fascinating. Do I call you the architect, then?" I'd been pretty sure that this wasn't a dream. They have a _texture_ that a trained occlumens can recognize. But this was beginning to convince me otherwise. Messiah complexes can be dangerous things, and you know the limit is crossed when you start dreaming about being the One… with a wand. Merlin, I _knew_ was insane from certain perspectives, but this was pushing it.

"That was sarcasm, I take it," He said softly. "I'm afraid the subtler nuances of your language sometimes escape me. But your situation, such as it is, is perhaps not very appropriate for such things."

"Really?" I smiled back. "What situation would that be? How did you get me out of Hogwarts, anyway?" I remembered raising the wards. Contrary to what I'd told Ron, it should've taken more than someone with simple brute power to break through them without alerting me first. But the old man didn't seem to be a Death Eater from the way he behaved.

"You are not outside your school- not in your body, in any case. I did say this was your dream, Harry."

"Bullshit. What was that crap about the Hall of Bones, then?"

"It _is_ the Hall of Bones. It is also your dream." Christopher, as he called himself, sighed. "Let me try to explain. Dreams can be places, too – but you have to dream it _right_. And when you dream in a certain way- when any sentient being dreams in a certain way- they find themselves this place. It looks different for everyone, of course. Your mind chose this Hall, perhaps because it associated this view with something deeper."

"Really." Christopher was doing a good job of irritating me. People sprouting nonsense usually have an easy job of it, with an exception or two. "And you? You're someone I made up in my mind too, right? And I chose someone like Dumbledore to tell me bullshit in my dreams, because that's just too enjoyable to miss!"

"I am, mm, how should I say this, _external_ to your consciousness, Harry – mostly. I can only speculate as to why your subconscious chose to view me in this form."

"Then who the fuck are you?"

"Christopher will do. That is not important. You are in a _very_ grave situation." His eyes were the merciless depths of deep space, cold and indifferent. "You do not _belong_."

I tried to ignore the shiver that went down my spine. "I'm the fucking Boy-Who-Lived. I've never belonged anywhere, Christopher, or whoever you are."

"Not what I meant." He said softly. "Not what I meant at all. You were not born here. Or made here. You come from somewhere else."

"Oh really." I said irritably. "Pull the other one."

"DO NOT LIE!" He roared suddenly, and there was an _absence_ of echo around me as if that great voice lost itself in a silence even greater. His eyes flashed, blue fire rising from its dark depths as he stood up, pushing the chair backwards. "You are a danger to this existence, Harry Potter. You are _cursed_. You must understand _exactly_ what situation you now find yourself in and accordingly. Refuse, and you will die."

"I don't take kindly to threats." I spoke through clenched teeth, trying to stop my body from shaking. This man _knew_, somehow. Knew how all of it had happened, perhaps better than myself. "I will ask again, and for the last time. _Who the hell are you and what the hell do you know about me_?"

"I know that you were expelled from your world. I know that your spirit braved the Time Winds and broke through here. I know that you bear a curse that eats away the reality around you. I know that you must die."

"Oh, not again all this cursed bollocks –"

"I know all this," He hissed, interrupting me, "because _I_ was the one who cast that curse."

--

The dorm was empty except for Ron when I woke up. I was still tired and sleepy, and my eyelids felt glued shut from what little rest I'd gotten in the dawn hours. Yet it was impossible to sleep on, what with being shaken by a gangly red-headed six-footer like it was the bloody end of the world. Of course, since it was Wednesday and we had Double Defense Against the Dark Arts first thing, for Ron it probably was.

It's been a long, long time since I'd been woken up like this. I hadn't missed it.

"Harry! C'mon, we've got to get to breakfast! Class starts in half an hour!"

"Yeah, yeah, Ron, I'm getting up," I managed thickly through my perched throat, "just gimme another second –"

"Up, Harry! Now! We've already overslept!" All panicky, he was. Maybe the_Dormio_ last night had been a little over the top, all things considered. Subduing renegade Syr doesn't require the same level of control compared to giving your best friend a little harmless shut-eye.

Oh well, I thought as he effectively dragged me towards the bathroom, at least we have the Toad today.

_It will be amusing, really._ My secret whispered, a purr sounding oddly content in the back of my mind. I heartily agreed.

--

She was already sitting on her teacher's desk as we filed into the room, thankfully not wearing that fluffy pink cardigan I remembered her wearing at the feast. She was dressed in a blue velvet robe, adorned with pink and yellow flower motifs. Her black bow top hat was velvet, too. All in all, she still reminded me of a big and stupid fly sitting on a bigger and stupider toad, but I would've been the first to admit that I was probably biased. To others, she might've even looked human from some angles.

Until she actually opened her mouth and tried to teach, that is.

"Good morning, class!" She croaked once we've all settled ourselves. "Good morning, Professor Umbridge!" they chanted back, already getting into the habit. I stayed silent, observing and hoping to be observed in turn.

Talk about luck.

"I think we should try again, and everyone should join this time," she said, all sugary sweetness. "Is there anything wrong with your voice, Mr.–"

"Potter, ma'am. Harry Potter." I can do sugar too, and without the simpering.

"Indeed. Well, Mr. Potter? Should we try again?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am?"

She smiled. "Not to worry, Mr. Potter. It's you first day in this class, isn't it?"

"Yes, ma'am. I'd been in the Hospital Wing on Monday."

"Severe illness, no doubt. Well, do try to settle in, Mr. Potter." That smile again. "As far as I can see from the records," a cursory glance at the sheaf of papers in her hand, "you've been the best in the subject thus far. I'm sure you'll do nicely."

"Thank you, ma'am. I'll certainly try." I was enjoying this. She really thought she could handle me, safely and soundly. After all, I was just a fifteen–year old stupid teenager clamoring for attention, wasn't I?

She'll get the answer to that soon enough. Soon enough.

"We are going to review today what you've managed to learned till now. I see that the instructors in your previous years have been…" she searched for the right word, "…_irregular_. Quite irregular. Thankfully, the Ministry has taken your rights to proper education under due consideration and you are now going to follow a far more balanced curriculum suited to your age and needs."

"Professor?" Hermione raised her hands. I readied myself for the prelude to disaster that was going to follow.

"Yes, Miss Granger?" She frowned, the bulging eyes pinched in a peculiar fashion.

"When are we going to learn casting actual spells? We'll need to demonstrate them for our OWLs, won't we?"

"We've discussed this before, Miss Granger." She was getting irritated. "I repeat, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to cast them under properly controlled conditions–"

I cleared my throat, and the whole class swiveled their heads to look at me. "What about real-life duels, Professor?"

"Real-life duels, Mr. Potter?" She smirked, but couldn't hide the edginess in her voice. "And why should you be engaging in real-life duels, pray tell?"

"What about," I leaned forward, fixing her with my eye and letting a spark of my mental strength press forward, "Lord Voldemort?" The class gasped as one, and she went pale and _hissed_.

"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is _gone_, Mr. Potter. He's been gone these fourteen years."

"And yet some say otherwise," I suggested, straining my mind. She shook her head, as if trying to shake off some invisible pressure.

"Lies and tricks, Mr. Potter. _Stories_. Told by liars, seeking the world's attention–"

"Then why do we need the training in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor?" I changed track. "If it's redundant, why does the Ministry insist on teaching us? And if we _do_ need it, why not let us practice the spells?" The Suggestion was taking shape, a faint strand of whispering power that seeped into her through the eye contact. _Keep staring at me, bitch, don't look away – _

"Why don't we continue this discussion after classes, Mr. Potter? A detention will do for now, I think. Come see me at five." She simpered at me, triumphant. And the world was all right.

--

"I was surprised that you actually backed down like that," Hermione admitted as we started our lunch in the Great Hall. "I thought you were going to land up in detention for a week."

"Please," I snorted. "As if anything I say is going to matter to that toad. She's just another Ministry lackey, Hermione. She would simply repeat what the Ministry says, about anything. There wasn't any point."

"Well, I still say she's a bitch." Ron groused, and it was a testament to how fed up Hermione was that she didn't even bother to give him one of her 'look's. "You were right, mate. We gotta learn DADA ourselves. Hermione, what do you think? We can go and get some books from the Library, I suppose…"

"I'm thinking about getting some pointers from the higher years," she said. "Moody– I mean Crouch set some good books last year. But that's not the point– and self-study only goes so far. Who's going to teach us?"

"Well, think about it," Ron said. "Who's got the experience fighting Dark Wizards? I've been thinking about this, 'Mione. I think Harry could teach us better than anyone else in the school. He knows what it's about." He looked at me, and so did Hermione, her face glowing.

"Of course! Harry, you'd be the obvious choice!"

"Hey, hey," I put up my hands to stop them, "I did say we were going to practice together, didn't I? I mean, I don't know _that_ much about dueling, but sure–"

"Actually we were thinking of getting a little more… er, diverse," Hermione said. "I was thinking how unfair it was that the others students aren't going to get any sort of practice at all, and Ron agreed with me. We were thinking of starting a club for spell study."

"A club?" I said, incredulous to all outward appearances. "You want to start a_club_? Like a Dueling club? And you want _me_ to teach others? Hell no!"

"But why not? If you can teach _us _–"

"It's not the same!" I furiously whispered, aiming to moderate my tone since the other Gryffindors were starting to stare. "I don't want to teach people I barely know! Do you think I want them to see me like a hero or something – do you think I want to be responsible– no, Hermione. Sorry, but _hell no_."

"We'll talk about this later," said Hermione firmly. Ron nodded his assent. "Potions starts in half an hour."

Damn. Snape, of all people.

Now, of all times…

Then again, I reflected as we got up and started to weave our way through the student population to the dungeons, I had never really expected to get out of it anyway.

--

Potions are incredible things.

There was a time when the wizards weren't organized as they are now, a time before Atlantis. There were few with the will or the ability to work spells of power, to channel the magic through pathways of their mind and reshape the nature itself. The idea of spoken spells, structured and studied and elegant, wasn't even conceived until the Gathering. Yet there were those that found themselves in the grip of a secret heritage that somehow translated into powers unnatural, and even though they knew no spell or charm or curse, the potions were invented as a natural result of the magic expressing itself. They became the shamans and the wise women of small villages, jealous guardians of lore that told of binding the earth and the water to our will, using bits and pieces harvested from the corpses of magical creatures... dragons were aplenty then, chimeras and hydras, runespoors and aurochs. So began the study of potions, the subtle arts, the only field of magic advanced when Atlantis began, and predecessor to alchemy, perhaps the most complex channel of power that had ever existed.

A true Master of the subtle arts is not someone to be taken lightly. He is clever and flexible, and ever aware of the most minute details of what he observes. His forte is the manipulation of elements, and adaption in a shifting and ever-changing field.

One who can apply such Mastery in life as well as he does in his works is one to be feared.

That was why I kept my eyes down as we entered the dimly-lit classroom, and chose a table at the back. Maybe he would pass me by, this time. There was that hope.

False hope, as always.

"Well, well... look who we have here." The greasy hair hadn't changed, and the flickering yellow light in the room did little to improve his appearance, sallow and unhealthily pale. One could see from where the vampire legends had sprouted, and the billowing cloak in the still dungeon air didn't help at all. "Finally decided to grace us with your presence then, Mr. Potter?"

The voice was familiar, and it brought up memories better left alone, my mind still a little raw from the dementor invasion. I stared forward, and kept my voice even. "I was in the Hospital Wing, sir."

"Ah, yes, yes, of course. How foolish of me to assume that you could have missed this class without being totally incapacitated. You must _love_ the opportunity to make a mess out of the valuable potion ingredients, Potter." The sneer was just as I remembered, the lips curled with disgust, the hooked nose jutting out.

"I'll try to be careful, sir." Smooth calm, rippleless and apathetic. Confronted with such a skilled mind, I could not risk being less.

Yet maybe the absence of overt emotion itself alerted him, for he strode forward, right to my desk. The suspicion was layered in his voice as he commanded, "_Look _at me, Potter."

I had little choice. I looked up.

His eyes were black, black like the depths of a dark tunnel, cold and glittering as frost. I could feel the power of the mind behind them, flexing itself, the tendrils of magic stretching, trying to map out my hidden thoughts and secrets. I breathed in, deep but as silently as I could, and withdrew into the recesses of my mind as far as I could have. No emotion, no thought, no impulse– my mind was clear, clear as a plateau scoured by the desert wind. The eyes stared at me, for what seemed a lifetime, then slowly withdrew. I held my breath.

He went back to the blackboard and turned around to face the class, and I suppressed a sigh of relief. "As I have already said before," he declared, "this is the year when you are going to face the most comprehensive test you have ever faced in your miserable lives thus far. Do not think that I shall go easy on you. I shall make sure that you do not besmirch the name of our proud institution. Those not alert or competent enough," his eyes flicked to Neville, then me, and I couldn't read his eyes, "shall be weeded out. Now –" his wand flicked and scrawls appeared on the blackboard, "– today you will attempt to make the potion known as the Moonstalker. Properly brewed, this changes colour according to the phase of the moon, and is extensively used as a base in several rituals..."

--

"Minerva, might I remind you that I am a teacher here, and appointed with complete approval from the Minister himself?" I said, sipping the blandly tasteless tea. Merlin alone knew what the old woman liked about it, and the biscuits were even worse. I almost sighed at the thought of the warm cup of coffee I would be having right now, if I were still at the Ministry. I suppressed it, not just social courtesy but because it wouldn't do to express any such feeling here, here among enemies.

And enemies they were, McGonagall and Flitwick and the lot, led by that ancient wizard. _Dumbledore._ The name itself was something to hate, a relic of the past that is now a dragging weight on our society, choking it slowly with _lies_ and _misdirection._ Trying to change us, change Britain itself, to satisfy the whims of his addled mind. It was astonishing how few had ever saw through that benign mask he set up for the world to see, the visage of an old, old man, old and wise with his years. Beneath that mask lay something far more sinister, hidden from view for all but the most observant.

_A spider._

I had been the first to see it, the first who had known him for what he was all those years ago, during the end of the war. When all of it was revealed during the trials, how he had manipulated us all, inserting people supposedly loyal to him into the ranks of the Death Eaters themselves. Oh, the story was good, and people had believed it– who knows, maybe parts of it were even true. But what had stunned me was how calmly they all had taken it– the population, the Wizengamot, the Minister himself – an old tyrant playing a _game_ of his own with a new one, a game of people's lives. Without informing anyone else, even the Ministry, we who are empowered to care for the welfare of the nation itself, by and of and for the wizards and witches. He had played his game of thrones, and who knows how many lives were lost for his amusement?

I hadn't been in such a high Ministry position then as I am now, and nobody would've listened to me, had I protested – the whole nation was in a state of euphoria, celebrating the fall of the Dark Lord himself and praising the baby who had somehow caused it. But I had waited, and I remember. Merlin, I remember.

And Potter, now. The Boy-Who-Lived.

He needs a lesson. A small one, perhaps... and there is that little instrument_just right_ for what I have in mind for him.

"Dolores, I'm sure that you have the best of intentions regarding our students, but don't you think that forbidding spell-casting for OWL and NEWT years might impair their chances in the coming examinations?" I transferred my attentions to Minerva, who was now tattling away as people her age are often prone to do.

"As I have told you time and time again Minerva, casting the spells in examination environments should not pose any difficulties as long as they get a solid instruction in magical theory. You know it as well as I do." I was getting impatient. It was close to five, and I _had_ to see Potter.

"But surely, you must keep in mind –"

"_Enough_, Minerva." I cut her off, ignoring the scandalized look she gave me. Old, _worthless_ woman. "I am the teacher of Defense Against the dark Arts, and I shall teach as I see fit. That is what I've been appointed for, by Headmaster Dumbledore and by the Minister himself." She needed to remember that I wasn't there just as another teacher. I was an observer, and I still held the post of Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of the British Ministry of Magic. Deputy Headmistress though she was, she held no authority over me. I decided to let her chew on the fact, and got up. It was five minutes to five, and it wouldn't do to be late.

No, it wouldn't do at all.

--

An occlumens is one who is the master of his own mind. His feelings are hidden behinds shields of emotionless calm, his thoughts swim deep in an ocean of crystal stillness. He does not let the world influence him to the point of imbalance. He never reveals what he feels, hidden as they are under the deep and utter calm, and indeed a Master occlumens sometimes cannot distinguish his true feelings himself.

I was an occlumens, and quite a good one. But even that couldn't protect me from shuddering at the sight of Umbridge's office.

All the surfaces had been draped in lacy covers and cloths. Dried flowers in vases somehow only added to the garishness. But nothing compared to the collection of ornamental plates hanging on the wall, each one decorated with a large technicolor kitten wearing a different bow around its neck. It was hideous. It was more than hideous. It was just like Umbridge.

"Good evening, Mr. Potter." The luridly flowered set of robes she wore were familiar, and as before did nothing to better her looks. "You are right on time."

The small lace-covered table was waiting at the corner, as I had known it would. I dropped my schoolbag on the floor, staring at her all the while. The rage in my heart _burned_, and she must have felt the heat in my gaze, for she cocked her head to the side and stared at me, as if trying to figure something out. Finally she nodded towards the table, and the blank parchment that lay waiting on top of it.

"You'll be doing some lines, Mr. Potter." That smile. That smile, again. Cruel and malicious.

"May I know why?" Not yet, not yet. She had kept no portrait in the room, undoubtedly trusting the floo for contact with her beloved Ministry. But there were wards – there _had_ to be wards. Already I could see the faint traces of the magic; crude but serviceable, crisscrossing the entire room. Wards to defend the caster against harmful intent, they mainly were, and easily dismantled… but one or two were worrisome. It wasn't that I needed to outduel her – I needed to silence her, and in silence. I had little doubt that Dumbledore would know about it the instant a ward activated.

I had to have time, to dismantle the wards properly. I'd underestimated the Senior Undersecretary, it seemed.

"You have been spreading stories, Mr. Potter. Nasty, evil stories; lies about how He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned. Your childish fancies are undermining the foundations of our nation itself!" She looked even uglier when she was angry, her pouchy eyes bulging, the nostrils flaring, her face turning flush with rage. "Unfortunately I can only punish you for offenses incurred during my class, Mr. Potter. Still, I think this lesson shall sink rather _deep_." She took out the quill, long and thin and black, and handed it over to me. I could feel its magic throbbing, mindless malice, a little swirl of blood and pain. My left hand clenched on the wand hidden beneath my robes.

"I want you to write, _'I must not tell lies'_," she told me, softly, sweetly. I looked at her eyes, then looked away. I went to the table and sat.

I started to write.

--

I wondered if the boy had been given this kind of punishment before. He did not even ask about the ink, and no surprise stained his stoic expression when the first line cut into his flesh. I observed him all the while, pretending to fiddle with some of the paperwork at my desk. He continued, on and on, never flinching, his head bowed over the parchment, the eyes half-closed, the left hand still under his robes. The scratch-scratch of the writing filled the silent room. After ten minutes or so of this, I shifted my attention to the mass of paperwork that was waiting for me on my table.

It was an hour or so later, well into the evening, when the wards fell.

I had designed them myself, not trusting Dumbledore's school wards to keep myself safe. It was ridiculous, of course, to even think that I would be_attacked_ within Hogwarts itself. It wasn't Dumbledore's style at all; not attacking a _teacher _of all people within his beloved school. It would bolster his theories about the Dark Lord emerging again, of course, but it would also tarnish his reputation further, besides the irreversible damage to the myth that surrounds the wards of Hogwarts that would be sure to follow. Or so I had thought. Still, safer is always better, and I had constructed my own wards with meticulous care. Few could have done a more thorough job. Few.

So I could only stand up and stare as they dissolved, gently yet quickly, degenerating into random harmless sparks in a space of moments.

I looked around, my wand in my hand even though I didn't remember drawing it. Violet flames rushed at me as the boy stood up and jabbed his wand. I dove to the right, only narrowly avoiding crashing into my desk. The boy leaped forward as I took cover behind it.

Damn you, Dumbledore, I knew it, knew it, knew it… it was a trap, and I fell for it. You sent the boy to kill me. You must be _mad_, as mad as Potter.

I have to reach the fireplace, I still have the floo powder pouch in my belt –

"_Effodio_."

Chunks of the desk were ripped away as the boy's curse struck, and I dived again, rolling on the floor as bits of wood and lace rained on me. A stunner missed me by inches as I got up to face the boy, only to duck again as another sailed over my head and struck my antique plate collection, all the beautiful china falling and shattering loudly on the floor.

"_Excracia_!" I shouted, jabbing my wand and twisting the wrist in one practiced motion. The sickly yellow magic streaked towards Potter with a resounding snap, only to be batted away as he grimaced and muttered a counter-curse. He waved his wand, and the fragments of my desk flew into the air, fluttering like feathers for a single moment before a flick of his wand banished them towards me with vicious speed. I cast the shield silently – _Astemi! _– and crouched behind it as the bits and pieces of shattered furniture thudded upon its golden surface, watching him twirl on his feet and cast a blue net of faint magical strands towards the door.

_A silencing ward_.

But why…? If Dumbledore's behind this…

Then the barrage ended, and I had no time to finish the thought for he was twisting again, turning back towards me impossibly fast as his wand arced a blazing silver –

Darkness.

--

The _Libenter_ curse isn't a very well-known one. A lesser variant of the Imperius, this one hasn't been rendered Unforgivable by the Wizengamot, along with a plethora of other dark curses. The reason behind this is sound enough – the Ministry documents all its laws on illegal magics, and illegal spells have to be specifically mentioned, along with the corresponding gestures and incantations, in order to prevent legal loopholes. After all, a law isn't a law unless everyone knows about it – and the idea that a wizard or witch could practically order a grimoire of dark curses by requesting the Ministry for legal documentations has never been very appealing. So the Ministry just passes law on Dark Magic Practitioners in general, leaving interpretations to the Wizengamot who, frankly, rate as a jury somewhere between a hungry shark and a thirsty vampire in terms of sheer vindictiveness.

But the darker curses_ are_ documented by the DMLE with religious fervour, and the archives grant full access to the Aurors. Even a former Head of the Auror department.

So I could safely say I knew most of the nastiest curses ever practiced within the British Isles, and I hadn't had to roam the whole world sniffing for exotic knowledge like Vodemort for it. Whatever else you say about the Ministry, it is very thorough in documenting _everything_.

The _Libenter_ is one of the most subtle spells that influence the human mind. It is the most elegant among the spells that _Suggest_, inserting specific impulses within the victim's mind that assert themselves as logical consequences of the victim's own actions. A long-term spell if there is one, it may take years or even decades to settle down in the victim's psyche.

I was rather hoping for months.

The curse seeped out of my wand, the magic invisible but leaving a coppery taste in my mouth. It pooled around her head, clinging to the mass of curls for a moment before slowly flowing inside her. I guided the tendrils, gently, gently, with all the patience and skill my years have taught me, focusing on little impulses and emotions, imprinting them on her unprotected psyche. It was going to be a matter of hours, but I had planned for this detention, and I had all the time I would need. It was a work to be savoured.

… It's not that I enjoy breaking the rules, or that I like being in a position of power. It's all that, but there's more to it. I didn't like Umbridge for the same reason I didn't like Severus. They were both true to their own views of the world. They both acted as they saw fit.

What can I say? I've always had problems with people who abuse their positions of authority.


	7. All That is Darkness

**Persistence**

_**Chapter Seven**_

**All That is Darkness**

--

The dark abides.

Magic is power, true. Pure and pristine energy, unsullied by the touch of animal impulses or emotions. It's when a living, breathing human tries to use it, attempts to channel all that power through a body of blood and bone,_then_ we have a problem. Any magical being that uses his conscious mind to control magic inevitably stains it with his own hungers, own desires, own joys and sorrows. No spell is, thus, neutral… but a curse cast by one might very well be a harmless charm when emitted from the wand of another.

Paranoids and fools like the members of the vaunted Dark Force Defense League have maintained through the centuries an idea of a war… continuous, never-ending, the sides always finding one champion after another to carry on the good fight. A war between the twin aspects of the power that is magic, magics Light and Dark.

Bloody fools. Bloody, damned fools. Damned in their ignorance, if not in their inexcusable stupidity.

There is no light or dark magic in and of itself. The _intent_ is only what we make of it. The caster demands, and his power answers. That is all there is to it.

And at the core of a human heart, when all the illusions and ambitions are stripped away, the darkness still rests mindful and eager for a wild unleashing, its only chains the timid consciousness and the suffocating rules of society. The dark abides. No force or charm or curse can cleanse it from our hearts. There is no innocence in the world. No true Light.

There never was.

All we can do is to keep the Dark away, as long as we can. Till the final darkness comes, the flood of the midnight tides.

--

"I don't know anything." The young man said quietly as we two stood looking at him. I continued to stare at him, but he didn't meet my gaze, choosing to look about him instead, as if the bare little room held something very interesting. I didn't sigh, very carefully, and raised an eyebrow.

"Pity." My voice didn't suggest anything of the sort. "We had a few questions for you."

"I don't know anything," He stubbornly repeated. I looked at him, sitting tied to a chair. He looked average, brown hair, brown eyes, reasonably athletic. Not someone you'd expect to jump up and try to rip your throat out with his teeth. Not unless you know _what_ he is. Then it's understandable, though admittedly not perfectly reasonable. I myself sprout fur every full moon, but it's rare that I attempt that kind of thing on anybody.

I grimaced, shaking my head a little to clear it of a distant memory of teeth and blood and fear that still retained a little of its intensity after all these years. I stole a glance at my companion, who had begun to smile quietly. All that beard and the shallow paleness in his face made it a rather disturbing sight.

"Don't you even want to know what those questions are?" I asked. The young man shook his head, setting his mouth in a firm straight line. "I want to return to my pack," He said. "The alpha wouldn't like it if you keep me here." He gave me a venomous look.

"The alpha," Sirius spoke up. His tone was contemplative. "That would be Fenrir Greyback, yes?"

"Why ask me?" The youth returned. "He," He jerked his head towards me, "knows as much about it as I do. He ran with us for a _week_."

"We want to hear it from you." Sirius said mildly. "Is Fenrir the pack leader?"

"Anybody could've told you that." The werewolf shrugged. "Yes."

"What's your name?" I asked.

He narrowed his eyes. "What's it to you?"

I shrugged, feeling a little stab of pain as my shoulder joints creaked in protest. "I'm curious. Besides, I saved your life. I carried you from the forest, when you were dying. You could at least tell me your name."

"Saved my life?" He bared his teeth. "Funny. Wasn't it you who injured me in the first place?"

"After you were trying to take advantage of a woman – "

"Taking advantage?" He interrupted me incredulously. "She was running with us. She_ wanted_ it. I found her first, it was my right."

"She wasn't… _in heat_." I replied coldly, a little distaste colouring my words. "You were going to rape her. I saw fit to intervene."

"Rape?" The werewolf laughed. "Which pack are you from? Werewolves don't_ rape_." He quieted, the look in his eyes a little disturbing. "True werewolves take what they wish to take. If you'd wanted the bitch so hard, you should've waited after the finder and the alpha, and then fought for the chance…"

"I don't care about your pack traditions," I interrupted. "She wasn't _willing_. That's enough for me."

"You are no pack wolf, _wizard_." He sneered at me. "Should've figured it out sooner."

"I'm good at seeming to be what people want me to be," I shrugged. "Nobody did suspect me, which wasn't what I'd anticipated." I smiled at him. "Not even your alpha. So much for the famous Greyback."

"He'll kill you once he finds out all that you've done, _traitor_." The werewolf snarled the last word out. I chuckled.

"What's he going to find out? That a couple of his pack had vanished? Happens every so often. He'll just assume we've killed each other. The girl would tell them that we were fighting for her as she fled, if he starts to ask questions, and that'd be that." I smiled affably. "Face the facts. He isn't going to concern himself about a couple of unimportant pack members much. Even if he did, there's no chance of your ever going back to the pack anyway."

"There are things we want to know," Sirius said. "General stuff. How many permanent members, hangers-on, the primary running areas. What packs you're allied with. How you took over those three packs in the last couple o'months. Stuff like that."

"I won't tell you anything!" The werewolf half-shouted. "Anything!"

"Oh, you will." Sirius took out his wand slowly. The werewolf barely flinched, but the fear was creeping into his eyes. His breathing quickened, almost imperceptibly, as Sirius began to trace a line on his cheek with the tip of his wand. Blood welled up, a thin red line that trailed the path of the sharp point.

"The Cruciatus doesn't do as much mental damage as quickly to the weres as it does to us wizards," Sirius murmured absently. "But they cause just as much pain, I have that on good authority. Do you know what that means?"

The werewolf said nothing.

"It means," Sirius flicked his wand, sealing up the shallow cut, "that I can cause you as much pain as it takes, before you start babbling everything. Though I suppose that could take days. On the other hand, we have a vial or two of veritaserum – " The werewolf flinched. "I'm impressed. Not many know about its effects on werewolves. I've heard that the silver in it goes to the bloodstream and reaches the heart in minutes. Then dissolves it from within. Very painfully, I've heard… Do you think that'd be enough time for us to get the information we want?"

"On the other hand," I supplied helpfully, "You could just answer our questions. You don't know anything much that can be a threat to the pack, do you? So it won't hurt the pack. Everyone's much happier, this way."

"Of course, if you deceive us, I won't hesitate to slowly rip you bones out," Sirius informed him. "Try to lie your way out of it, and… well, let's just say that I'll let you live, werewolf, and you'll curse me for it."

The werewolf swallowed. "You're going to kill me anyway, once I've told you what I know."

"We won't." I spoke up, letting the man see me throw a venomous glance towards his tormentor. "_I_ am in charge of this operation, sanctioned by the Ministry to investigate the recent werewolf attacks. I'm not a sadist and I don't enjoy torture." I didn't smile as he nervously glanced at Sirius. "Speak up, and we'll send you to a holding facility after we're finished. You'll be there only till this mess sorts itself out. Who knows, you might get out in a year or two, if you're lucky."

"The alpha will kill me if I betrayed the pack's secrets," He shook his head nervously. "I… I can't."

"He isn't going to know, for Merlin's sake," I snapped. "Co-operate, and I promise you security."

"Besides," Sirius interrupted, "Fenrir isn't here. _I_ am. And I promise you that I can kill you in an infinitely more inventive way. I know this curse that leaves your nerves fresh as it flays your skin –"

"Albert, please." I frowned at Sirius, my eyes narrowed with distaste. "Keep your curse repertoire to yourself. I have full confidence that our young friend here will recognize the wiser course of action."

"Oh, very well." Sirius shrugged, looking disappointed. I hoped he was faking his expressions just as I myself was.

I faced the werewolf again, who was by now looking almost as pale as Sirius. "You don't have to answer right now. We'll check on you tonight. Think about it." He nodded, faintly.

I waited till Sirius was gone, then followed. I stopped at the door, looking back at our prisoner. "You didn't tell me your name."

"Martin," He lied. His voice was faint. I didn't say anything for a moment, then repeated it in a soft voice. "_Martin._ Well, Martin, think abut what you've heard, all right? Think _hard_." I didn't look back as the door shut and locked itself behind me. Sirius was waiting for me in the corridor.

"Think he fell for it?" He asked as we weaved our way through the old house.

"I think so," I shrugged. "He's young enough to believe all that secret Ministry agent stuff, anyway. Think he's going to spill?"

"You know what to do, if he doesn't." Sirius said. I frowned.

"Doesn't seem right, you know."

"He tried to rape a girl, Remus." Sirius shrugged uncomfortably. "He's no innocent."

"He's too young to die." I shook my head.

"Everybody's too young to die, if you ask them." Sirius said. "It's a war. People _will_ get killed."

"I wish there _was_ a holding cell we could send him to."

"Albus says they're all compromised. Infiltrated."

"And we can't even keep him here."

"Security risk. You know as much about it as I do. We've talked about this before."

"Yeah." I sighed. "You remember when we first started at this? We wouldn't have done something like this, those days."

"We weren't what we are now, those days." Sirius pointed out. "We were _losing_, Remus. Maybe we were better men, then. That doesn't change the fact that we were _losing_."

"So we must kill when we must, even in cold blood? Is that it? Is that the key to winning?" I asked softly, more to myself than to anyone else. The words hovered in my ears, ugly as something can only be ugly when it reflects an ugly truth.

"You know what they did to us." Sirius hissed. "You know, Remus. You know. What they did to our friends. What they did to _me_. I'll see Voldemort and his lapdogs _dead_, Remus – " His voice stood at the verge of trembling, steadied, its cadence hinting at a chilling determination. Azkaban was in his eyes as they rested on mine. "I'll do what I must."

I looked away. He was right, in a way. He was right.

We were better men, once. All of us. Together.

But it doesn't matter how long you fight, in the end. Or how hard. The darkness always wins. One way, or another.

"As you said, Sirius. It's a war." I conceded, closing my eyes for a brief moment to jerk myself away from the memories. "Let's go have some lunch."

--

"My Lord… my Lord… mercy…"

"Mercy?" I smiled, and lifted the sniveling young man off his feet in a gesture with the crooked index finger of my right hand, my robes fluttering a breeze unseen and unfelt by the thirty-odd shadowed figures kneeling in obeisance over the gravel and hard stone. The cavern walls were lightless black, the darkness absolute. One single torch spat out a gout of flame behind me, its light a yellow haze that etched the fear in the youth's face in sharp relief. He was trying to scream, suspended in air, my power coiled around him and choking his life out.

My followers watched. In silence, every breath held and carefully muted.

Red rage simmered beneath my shield, sudden shivers of emotion and power trying to burst free from my control. I did not let it. It would be so sweet, just to make him die here, the revolting scent of life banished with one simple spell.

So easy, and so hard to resist. And yet, and yet… he had erred, and he would _bleed_ before he ceased. Just to make it clear to my faithless servants, one more time. We are united in a common cause.

Mistakes cannot be tolerated. They will not be.

I spread my palm out, loosening the bonds on my servant. He had time to let out a choked scream before another wave of magic slammed him on the hard stone, the crack of breaking bone satisfactorily loud. He whimpered, for a moment, before a _Silencio_ paralyzed his vocal cords.

I looked at Bella, her wand still out. She smiled at me, returning it to her sleeves. She could not have seen my expression, and yet looked strangely serene.

I could not abide my servants groveling at my feet. That is weakness, and weakness I despise.

She knew me well.

Well enough to know that whimpering and crying for mercy would have availed the youth nothing but pain.

So, Bella, after all these years, have you found in yourself some small measure of _mercy_? A weakness, my dear. And yet I see no weakness in your eyes as I bore through them. Only devotion, to a degree almost mindless… but no, I_ see_

_I see_

Family. Yes, I see. All dead or traitors to the True Cause. And now you see _these_ as your own, do you? A Pureblood's view, the sense of belonging to a Family and the assurance of being protected by the Master… I see indeed. I did wonder how you survived your years in Azkaban, Bella. The Dementors delighted in taking you again and again, and they make no secret of it, the degenerate beasts. Was it faith, then? Faith, your sole power against mental invasions only a Master of his mind such as I can deflect?

Is that faith… faith that the old fool talked about? Can it be that it endows power beyond the sentimentality of fools… it cannot, no Law of Magic would have permitted it… and yet…

Something to consider.

But that is for some later time.

"You have failed," I said dispassionately. "I gave you five a task. You have failed me."

He tried to speak, could not. Air wheezed out of his lungs as I bunched my fingers, increasing the pressure.

"I gave your team command," I continued. "Command of a full Hunter Squad. They were to be your eyes and ears in this mission. They were you_responsibility_. They died, protecting you. And you left their corpses behind." I lifted the silencing charm from him with a simple effort of will. "Speak."

"My Lord – My Lord – I am sorry – "

"_Speak,_" He flinched at my tone, "but not of mercy. _Who did this?_"

"They attacked us, My Lord – they – "

"You dare?" I hissed. "You dare lie to _me?_ There was only one man. Speak the truth, my servant, or you shall live to regret it."

"The Dark Lord always knows," Bella whispered from my right. I smiled, and the youth flinched away.

"Always," I agreed. "_Speak._"

"We were – we were retrieving the objects you wanted, My Lord. The Hunters alerted us. We thought the Ministry Aurors had arrived – we didn't expect –_fire_, my Lord. It burned through our shields, it – it_ whispered_, Master! We _had_ to apparate out of the house. And then," He took a deep breath, hissing quietly with pain and cradling his broken left elbow to his chest with his right hand, "Greengrass and Davis were badly burned, they left to summon assistance. Then he attacked us, my Lord."

"_He._" My lips curled up. "One man, against three of mine."

"We had no chance, my Lord. He stunned me before I had any chance to defend myself. From the back."

"And where _are_ the objects I needed you to retrieve?" I asked.

"I – I do not know, my Lord. I had one in my possession before the Aurors took me. Others – "

"Your comrades, Greengrass and David," I interrupted, "died shortly after apparating to the Manor. The curse was too potent, it seems. The Aurors reached the location within minutes, retrieving your unconscious body and – " I watched his face, "Avrust's corpse."

The emotions flared in his eyes, anguish and weakness. So I was right. He didn't have any hand in killing his lover.

"Whitehall," I continued, "is dead. The Hunters I sent with you are all dead. Of all of you, only you are alive. And you will have to answer for this failure."

He breathed in, his panic and grief almost a tangible thing in the air. "My Lord – my Lord – I am yours."

"Yes. You are mine, to do what I will." I spoke, every note in my voice resonating against the shadowy crowded silence in the cavern, building upon each other. They listened, apprehension and terror clouding rational thought, until the stink of sweat and fear threatened to clog my superhuman senses. I waited, and watched the tension rise up and choke their minds.

Theatricality. Some call it cheap, but I know the truth. I have known all my life how powerful can it be, applied the right way. Guided by the right hands. To cajole, to push, to persuade. It is magic more fundamental that a flashy charm or spell. Those of us born with power enough can go beyond mere streams of light and power, and change the strides of the reality itself. We manipulate fate itself, not commanding it, but willing it to flow our way by simply existing.

I have felt its effects, the distortion in the universe that makes things happen. Unusual things. Incredible things. We cannot influence it consciously, but there are a number of events that I suspect would not have turned out the way they had, had I not been present.

That is what I do. That is what the old man does.

That is what, I suspect, Potter does –

This was _not_ the time, however, for that. _That_ particular consideration would have to wait for some other time.

"You failed me." I announced over the hushed and waiting silence. "You failed your cause. You failed your blood. Your heritage." I looked down on his kneeling form, flinching with every accusation like a stray leaf buffeted by a roaring wind.

A better stage I could never have asked for.

They watched. They watched. The faithless spineless fools who thought a line reaching through the ages gave them the power to lord their superiority over others.

They would learn.

There is no good and evil. There is only power, and those of us with will enough to seek it, instead of clinging to a higher authority like these blithering fools.

Bella I could, perhaps, understand. Or maybe not. But she had will enough. Power enough.

These I called my faithful did not. They had no faith in me, a miasma of a dark past they would have liked to forget, newly risen from decade-old ashes and whispering new promises of power. They had tasted blood, once. A revel that had abruptly been ended, a decade and a half ago. They were feeling the need, again.

They would learn.

"You have failed," I said again to the kneeling youth who now raised his face to look at me. Thirty-odd skulls watched around the cavern, their white smiles veiled by the deepest black. "There is only one price of failure."

"My Lord." He swallowed, did not whimper. Did not beg. Some grief larger than self-preservation was gnawing at him, the pain in his eyes startlingly shocking. An image of a woman thrust itself at me, a memory of a joyful smile. It lost itself in the darkness.

He did not wish to live, anymore.

That was a request I had already granted.

"You were apprehended by the Aurors, yesternight." I continued, softly. "You took a potion passed on by a believer in our cause. And then you died."

"My Lord?" The man gasped, the strangled sound not quite masking the momentary murmur around the cavern. "I – "

"You bear my mark," I told him. "I summoned you. My Death Eaters are _mine_, servant. Even in death. You did not pass on, but were brought here."

He said nothing, disbelieving. Yet the doubt was creeping into his face.

"Your flesh is just an illusion. A feeling, conjured with my power and what your mind imagined waited here to host it. You are _dead_, my servant."

The eyes were wide, the panic in them a shriek to my reading gaze.

"I could make you stay here," I spoke, taking care to send every seething syllable to the eager ears waiting. "I could _trap_ your spirit, servant. You bear my mark, and Death itself is not enough to put you beyond my reach."

His body was _fading_, the skin turning transparent, the muscle beneath shriveling away. The eyelids peeling back. The lips stretching and vanishing, the teeth bared into a skull's grin.

"But you were faithful to me, until the end." I continued. "And may none say that Lord Voldemort is not generous to his faithful. You may _leave_."

And he was gone, like that. An oath or two came from the audience, unaware of the shrieking vortex of power that I could almost feel in the room, wild and_ hungry_. Bella shifted nervously behind me, but I did not put any mind to her. I waited a moment or two, and the power I was feeling dissipated.

"It is not in my nature to be tolerant," I said. "You, my friends, know this. Our mission, such as it was, was successful to some extent. Yet we cannot condone mistakes in the course of our cause. Those who err," My eyes glittered red as I forced power into my gaze, "will be punished. With death."

They waited, perfectly still. Waited to hear condemnation. Waited for me.

"We have made mistakes before." It was the truth, and this they had not expected.

There is no weapon more powerful than the truth.

"I admit it. We have all made mistakes. And we have suffered. How we have suffered." I could hear Bella coming forward, taking her place beside me. A place she had earned, over and over. I was her Lord. Her true Lord, and hers alone.

"But we shall not suffer again, shall we, my friends? We shall not be defeated again, temporary or not – we shall not bear the ignominy the mudbloods place on our heritage in silence. No longer. No longer."

They waited. Waited for me.

She waited.

"We have suffered, my friends, my faithful friends," I whispered. "We have suffered. And we have made our mistakes."

The light from the torch glanced along the grey-black shadows that slithered on the cavern floor.

"But this I swear to you," I whispered. "This I swear, in the name of Salazar Slytherin. We shall make no more."


	8. The Best of Intentions

**Persistence**

_**Chapter Eight**_

**The Best of Intentions**

--

I was the first to wake up the next morning. The transition was abrupt, like when you're underwater and swimming towards the light, and suddenly you hit the surface and everything molds itself into something else, like the bursting of a bubble. My eyelids fluttered and I pressed them shut, breathing in the fresh morning air that breezed through the dorm window. It was morning, had to be, but I looked _within_ myself, just to be sure.

My head spun all of a sudden, my heart beating madly as my laboured breaths echoed in the quiet over the deep breathing of my sleeping dorm-mates. I squeezed my eyelids shut further, trying to deal with my head splitting like a bloody plow without making a sound. The pain stabbed savagely once, twice, as if punishing me for some transgression, I thought, then receded, leaving a grim sense of warning behind. My hands clenched on the bed sheet, the sound of tearing cloth loud in the silent room.

I lay there, unmoving, as flecks of dust swirled over my head in the sunlight flitting through the window curtains. My breathing eased gradually, but my mind did not. This was going to be a problem.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd failed at this Sun ritual. For someone concerned with the traffic of time, the paths the stars travel holds importance beyond the mere physical world. Time is inherent in the universe, but for a being it only matters according to what sentience is there to shape it. Time is how we perceive it. For someone like me, the perception needs to be very sharp indeed.

I could remember when the knack had manifested first. In that cave in Albania, trapped in a cave for days. Sitting in the pitch black darkness, my heartbeats slowly settling down, slower and slower, each beat a reassurance, till it had become my entire world. I had realized, after a time, that I could tell what day was passing, could look up at the blackness and _know_ where the sun rested in the sky.

That was when it all started. A nightmare that had lasted for decades, till I'd become so used to my life that loss itself had stopped having any meaning to me.

Still… I'd become used to my inner sense. I'd… adapted.

It _hurt_ to be without it. I hadn't considered that when I'd come back to the past I might've left something in me behind. And if that, what else had I missing? Would I stumble in a duel trying to cast a familiar spell? How could I know what I had left, when I couldn't even remember how I had started this impossible journey….

I had to know, I thought, it seemed for the hundredth time in a span of days. I had to _understand_. And there was only one way I could see that might conceivably unlock whatever barrier that sealed my memories, without costing weeks that I did not have. And I had no pensieve, and no chance to get one any time soon.

I grimaced, laying a palm on the torn sheet. It mended itself as I got up. No point in leaving traces of my unstable mind for Albus' interpretations… especially when he might stumble onto something right by mistake.

I contemplated the scene before my eyes. All the boys sleeping peacefully… not knowing what's coming. Not even suspecting. I couldn't blame them, but still I felt out of my depth, suddenly – not sure at all that I'd be able to do what I needed to do. And if the history strayed too much from what I knew – knowledge is a burden, some say, and at that moment I knew what they meant. I had the means to act. That also implied an obligation that I had to.

That's me, I suppose. That's my saving people thing.

For someone not a little mad, I supposed it could've been worse.

--

The Astronomy Tower was one of the highest spires of Hogwarts. On most days, it was even the highest – nobody could _really_ be certain about the castle, old and saturated with magic as it was, and even though the places the students visited usually were stable enough, much of the sentient magic often manifested itself into rooms that came and went, and stairways that went upwards and stopped at the same floor, not to mention some of the older wings that shifted from floor to floor on their whim – and the towers were prone to stretch and contract with such regularity that Dumbledore himself had once been heard to remark that it was as if parts of the old school were at war.

This was perhaps truer than what most people thought, I reflected as I watched the grounds from the terrific height. I could see the mountains in the distance, a wall that separated the ancient school from the outside world. The forbidden forest stretched all around the clear grounds, becoming a blur at the foot of the distant hills.

The school was, in essence, divided. The Houses, while they promoted competition, have become entrenched in the tradition of rivalry and enmity. Any magical scholar worth his wand agrees to a degree of consciousness in the magic we employ, if not in itself then due to the taint of the caster's mind reflected in the spells. And in a place where magic has been employed with malice unto others aforethought for a thousand years, a schism is almost _woven_ into the magic's fabric.

An idealist would have said that uniting the Houses would have been the way to harness all the potential inherent in the best institution of magical education in Britain. I hadn't been an idealist for a very long time. Division had its own power, and was often far more efficient.

I shook my head in disgust. I had experience, and my instincts were better than any wizard or witch I had ever known – but to win I needed to know my opponent, and I didn't even know who I was fighting _for_.

Was Voldemort my enemy here? Perhaps. Certainly the ones around me faced a threat from him and his. But I didn't know why I was here, or how – and where exactly my past self was. Would I go back to my own time, given the chance? I honestly didn't know, surprisingly… once the shock of seeing all the old faces again had faded, the tiredness had crept back, inch by inch. The old life had been the awful boredom of getting up every morning to the same scenery, the same work, and the only pleasure had been in the kills, careful and meticulous. The thrilling silence of the _hunt_.

Here… here it was all too dangerous. Here… it _suffocated_.

Added to that was the uncertainty of victory. All my Hogwarts life had been a script, thoughtfully made, a Master's best work. I had been Dumbledore's legacy. I had picked up after him. I had fought the good fight.

And all the advantages he had given me, I no longer possessed. The Wand he still had, of course. The horcruxes were still waiting, peacefully, sinister shadows that edged darkly along my hopes and plans. The Ring… I still remembered what it had done to me, the last time I had tried to use it. The scar it had made had vanished with this body, but the memory was still clear.

I was no longer the man I had been. I was no longer the man that had been victorious over perhaps the most dangerous Dark Wizard in magical history.

What an Avada Kedavra would do to me now, I didn't know. I was in no particular hurry to find out.

There were definite advantages, of course. I had knowledge on my side this time – but foreknowledge rarely worked the way you wanted it, and it was damned dangerous to all who messed with it. Prophecies, for example; there were damned good reasons why only a select few of the Unspeakables ever got to handle the knowledge. Fate didn't like people who wished to cheat it.

And power, I reminded myself. I'd learned enough secrets on my quest for the reason of it all. Enough, maybe, to sink this whole damned island with enough time. But to take on Voldemort himself… that wasn't going to be easy, especially now that I could no longer trust the magic that had helped me all these years. Ignorance can be an armour, too, and Dumbledore had taken pains to ensure that I had had it. If I had known all the things that had been going on, I might have acted differently, very differently – and the war might've taken a very different course. I'd been foolish. I'd been ignorant. I'd been a _pawn_, even though the comparison seemed foolish and a bit too whiny for my tastes.

But even a pawn can mate a King, if the player is wise enough to pave its way.

The Harry Potter I had _displaced_ – he would have won in my stead. He would have won because that was what Albus had planned for. But even Albus Dumbledore didn't know – couldn't know – that the Harry Potter he needed wasn't there anymore. And love or sacrifice were concepts _I_ had left behind a long time ago.

Killing Voldemort was still possible, of course. I knew that. But powerful as I had been in my time, _feared_ as I had been, I had never been tested against someone of Voldemort's caliber. My power had been far above the others I'd faced or helped, but I just couldn't be sure that it was enough to face the full might of Lord Voldemort.

A war isn't won on just power alone. I knew that. To fight – and fight I would have to, unless I found a way to bring the Harry of this time back in my place – I would have to know the stakes. Ignorance can save you sometimes, and knowledge is always an advantage… but knowing things halfway is just asking for trouble. And I didn't want trouble I could possibly avoid.

The start would have to be my own mind, I decided. And I had no way to get my hands on a pensieve any time soon. But there were other devices to unlock the mind, and one of them resided in the school itself. I was pretty sure that however I had come here, it had been of my own will. It hadn't been a damned accident, and it hadn't been somebody else – I _knew_ it, somehow. The question remained – just what the hell had I hoped to accomplish? To mess all of it up – to jeopardize the certainty that Voldemort would have been defeated – what goal would have been worth it? And all that boiled down to one thing: buried under the locked memories of the recent past, what did I _want_?

All that aside, I was damned curious. It'd been forty-some years, after all, since I'd last gazed on the Mirror of Erised.

--

"Morning, Harry," Hermione said without looking up from the Daily Prophet as I arrived at the Gryffindor table. "Mawnin'," Ron agreed, his mouth full of bacon. I sat beside him, taking some bacon from the plate as Hermione finally looked up from the paper. She was biting her lip. Both she and Ron looked a bit furtive, and I frowned at them both.

"What's happened?" I asked, though I was pretty sure of the answer. I took a look at the paper, and saw what I'd expected. _SIRIUS BLACK SIGHTED IN LONDON_, the headline screamed, and the filthy gaunt face snarling from the photograph was soothingly familiar. Some things were still the same, I thought. The timeline hasn't been disturbed that much. Hopefully. Hopefully.

"At least they didn't catch him," I said tightly, giving her the paper back. "Huh, I _knew_ Lucius recognized him at the platform."

"You didn't tell us – " Hermione began, and I stopped her with a short wave of my hand. "No point," I replied. "Ah, what is this… _what_?"

They bent closer to see what I was reading. The piece I was looking at was small, barely a couple of inches, right at the bottom of the paper. It was headlined:

_ACCIDENTAL DEATH AT MINISTRY MYSTIFIES OFFICIALS _

_Sturgis Podmore, 38, from Laburnum Gardens, Clapham, was found dead last night after an unfortunate accident at the Ministry. Mr. Podmore was found by Ministry of Magic watchwizard Eric Munch, who found him dead near a top-security door at three O'clock in the morning. An internal investigation is in progress, and all evidence points to an unfortunate flux in the wards protecting the 'top-secret Ministry wing', pinpointed at about one a.m. last night. A statement issued by a Ministry of Magic spokesperson said that Mr. Podmore had been simply 'at the wrong place at the wrong time'. _

_No reason behind his presence near the 'top-secret' wing at that time in the night seems to be forthcoming._

_The Ministry maintains that the relatives of the unfortunate Mr. Podmore will be properly recompensed. Mr. Podmore is survived by his wife and their young daughter._

"Sturgis Podmore," Ron said slowly as he sat back. "He's the bloke who looks like his head's been thatched, remember, 'Mione? Blimey – he's _dead_?"

"What was he doing there at night?" Hermione whispered. She looked almost as shocked as I felt.

I'd been too easy on myself. Things weren't going as planned. Sturgis wasn't supposed to _die_ – not yet. And yet the lines were there on the paper, glaring at me.

"How do you think he died?" I whispered at last, my mind awhirl with speculations.

"They said the wards – " Ron frowned.

"_They_," I hissed, "say a lot of things. They say I'm mad, for example. You sure you want to believe that, too?" Paranoid and harsh. But maybe some good could still come of this.

Hermione frowned. "Harry, I know the Ministry – _lies_," she visibly struggled with the word, "sometimes, but about a _death_? Don't you think that's a little overboard?"

"Is it?" I asked harshly, taking care to keep my voice a whisper. "What's the absolute limit the Ministry would go to keep Dumbledore away, do you think? C'mon, Hermione – _think_ about it for once – now that Fudge knows that Dumbledore believes me about Voldemort – _stop flinching, damn it_ – and what won't he do to stop people from believing in _us_ instead of his lies? Sturgis was Dumbledore's man, so maybe they _lured_ him to the Ministry – maybe there was a fight, and they probably didn't _mean_ to kill him – but you see how it could've happened, don't you? What else could he have been doing at the Minitsry at night, anyway?"

"An awful lot of maybe's, Harry," Hermione shook her head, agitated. Ron was looking from one of us to the other, his mouth open. I made sure that nobody else was observing us too closely, then bent my head closer to her. They both leaned forward to catch my words.

"There were Death Eaters last time who just _vanished_ after Voldemort's fall," I whispered. "And some got caught. But there were a lot of people who were set free by the Wizengamot, mainly on the Imperius defense. People working at the Ministry, too. I'm not saying Fudge arranged for Sturgis' death, Hermione. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't – all I'm saying is that we can't trust the Ministry _at all_. Not just Fudge or Umbridge – we can't trust _any_ Mnistry official except those we personally know. And even then we have to be careful for polyjuice or illusions – there's nothing Voldemort won't do to see me _dead_."

"You're saying that there're Death Eaters among the Ministry Officials. You're saying – sabotage." Hermione was looking pale.

"Yes." I agreed. "The Ministry is… infiltrated. We can't suppose that they're just too stupid to know better. This," I tapped the newspaper spread on the table, "this is too much of a coincidence to be real. We have to assume that the Ministry from now on is – "

"Actively hostile," Hermione finished. I inclined my head.

"We need to know more," Ron said suddenly. "If there're Death Eaters within the Ministry –"

"Shh, Ron!"

"Yeah, well," he looked abashed, lowering his voice. "If there really _are_ You-Know-Who's followers in the Ministry – we're in danger. _Real_ danger." He and Hermione looked at each other. "I think – I think it's time we should ask him."

"Ask me what?" I asked in a curious voice.

"You remember the talk we had about the… DADA club?" Hermione asked.

_Ah_. I sat back, satisfied, ready to start the round of haggling and protests that had to come before saying 'yes'.

Poor Sturgis, really. But at least he didn't die for nothing.

A pity, but that would have to do.

--

The dusty trapdoor squeaked as I lowered myself to the passageway waiting beneath. I landed softly like a cat, taking care not to disturb the dust around me any more than I had to. I had no intention of leaving any sign of a visitor behind me when I left. I knew all the charms to do that, of course, and I wasn't incautious enough not to use them, but it was mostly a matter of pride.

The passage ended in the small room, as expected. I looked around. It seemed smaller than how I'd remembered it. There were no snitches hovering in the air, of course. The door was locked, too, but a simple silent _Alohomora_ took care of it. The hinges creaked as it opened, showing the hall beyond.

The chessboard still remained, but the colours have faded in places and even encroached at one another. The whole floor was a mosaic of white and black shapes, entangled in wild geometries. I paid no attention to them, passing the rooms with barely strained impatience. The room with the trolls passed, then the one where I had had to face the doorway lined with fire. The last door, finally gave way to what I sought.

The Mirror of Erised stood tall and majestic, dominating the entire room. The room was otherwise bare, but the Mirror itself stood at its centre, drawing eyes away from everything else. The room was almost replete with the feeling of dormant power, powerful with age, focused into the lens of a single terrible purpose. I could _feel_ the power waiting, watching, ready to rip away all my mind and soul, to reflect and to tempt, to torment and to bare all that I sought to bury within myself. Every single little thought was just another road to what I was _within_, every impulse a thread in the tapestry of human purpose.

Sweat had broken out all over my body. My skin felt cold, and clammy with something that was only a part fear.

Even eleven years old I held felt its pull, had felt the wish to stand before judgment and bare all I was within. But I hadn't recognized what it had been. This was no human thing, this attraction – every single strand of the power that tried to move me forward was _alien_ to every form of magic I had ever been a witness to. Thirty years of magic behind me, experienced in all the forms of control there ever was, I had no problem knowing the compulsion that slithered through my soul – revoltingly alien, and infinitely more complex than the spell I had used on the bitch just a day before. And even though I knew it was there, even though I hated to give away my actions under another's control – I was angry enough to be disgusted at the mere thought of going back.

The Mirror _beckoned_.

I gritted my teeth, remembering the warning Albus had given me all those decades ago. I could see how the Mirror could become addictive – the compulsion was strong enough to enslave a weak mind, to condition it into coming back again and again and again. I suddenly had a mental picture of something waiting behind the surface, waiting, leeching your memories for sustenance and alien pleasure. I shivered, and wished I hadn't come at all.

I'd been complacent to think that I could use such an ancient device for my own purposes so easily. I'd been too busy being complacent this week, it seemed.

A situation that I knew I would have to rectify, starting with the instant I went back to Gryffindor.

But for the moment, oh gods, the mirror _beckoned_.

I forced myself to move forward slowly, trying harder not to sprint with every step as the pull of the ancient device got stronger and stronger. Finally – _finally!_ – I came to stand before the surface, which stood innocuous, showing only the room and me standing alone. Yet the feeling of power swirling all around me did not fade at all.

The surface began to mist over, and I frowned as it turned the white of fog in a matter of moments. Then something dug a sharp spike in my head, and I couldn't help but cry out with the sudden shock of pain. The power that I'd been feeling intensified, leaving a train of bleeding wounds through my mental shields. I tried to hang on, retreating deeper within myself, but the power was not human and it didn't care what or how as it stripped shield after shield from me with ruthless abandon.

And then, when it had taken away every single web of lie and deception that hid my mind from the world outside, when at last I was naked and without the power to even resist, it _looked_.

There was nothing that could describe the experience properly, no words were enough – is enough – would be ever enough. It wasn't the innocent Harry who had come to see with innocence and dreams and eyes shining with hope. It was Harry Potter this time, Harry Potter the Vanquisher, Harry Potter the mighty, Harry Potter the Syr, the judge and the murderer of those not worthy to live.

_Erised… Erised stra…_ The inscriptions engraved on the mirror shone with golden fire to my eyes, whispering their meaning into my ears.

_Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi_

_I show not your face, but your heart's desire._

It was perhaps the most frightening experience I've ever had, bar one that had happened to me in the future and one that awaited me still.

I didn't know what the Mirror – whatever it was – saw, nor would I ever know. But the mist slowly faded, showing me standing alone in a room I recognized in an instant.

The reflection smiled at me, and I knew that smile, cruel and intoxicated with the thrill of a coming hunt. He inclined his head at me, and then turned his back to me to face another man at the other end of the room.

The other man was indistinct in the shadows that shielded most of the room reflected in the Mirror's surface. My reflection, for that was all I could think to call it, lifted his wand.

A green flash lit up the room, and I could finally see what waited at the far end.

Sharp crystals crowded on each other, their edges arranged in ways that suggested subtle geometries that escaped all closer observation. The green glinted off the mirroring surfaces, lighting this one and the other, a play of light and shadows that moved in a smooth ripple over the crystal faces.

In the momentary green of death the Death Gate burned in my eyes, familiar and horrible with the familiarity. There was no beauty in its cruel edges, nothing human. The crystals arched, one built upon the other so that there was no end nor beginning, and for the littlest moment I thought I saw not a mass of crystals but the glint of waiting teeth.

The curse passed over it, and as it passed, in its place crept back the veil of shadowy darkness.

The indistinct figure was hit by the curse, and it lifted him in the air, the corpse following a graceful arc that ended in an abrupt collision with the wall behind him. The body hit the floor with no sound that I could hear this side of the Mirror, and even though I was too far to see his face, I knew the vacant eyes that would be on the dead face.

His back still to me, his wand held aloft, my reflection began to laugh. The sound was keening, and high with gleeful malice. I could recognize the voice, almost – the note of wild joy struck a cord in me somewhere.

The laughter stopped abruptly, and my reflection whirled back. His face was still set in the smile, but the eyes – in the eyes were nothing but darkness. Two black holes stared at me from a distance unimaginable.

I _knew_ those eyes. I've seen them, I knew – somewhere – and for a moment it was as if another face was superimposed on his, a glint of glasses and a hint of a forgotten memory –

My reflection help up is hand, empty now, one index finger held high and crooked. The finger moved from side to side, twice, a gesture of forbidding, the tone of warning in it unmistakable. The lips moved, and though no sound came forth, I could read them well enough.

_Not yet, Harry._

The sound of thunder struck all around me, and the Mirror exploded. Tiny shards of glass burst outward, and I covered my face with my hands reflexively, waiting for the glass to hit.

The sound stopped.

I lowered my hands and looked around.

The room was just as it had been before, dusty and old with neglect. The Mirror still stood, unharmed. I stared at the perfectly normal reflection that stood before me, grimacing as I grimaced myself. I looked around again, almost unbelieving, unsure what to believe.

The power I had been sensing all around the room wasn't there any longer. It had simply… vanished. I shook my head, refusing to believe it all as just a hallucination, and frowned with the effort of sensing the magic all around me even as all my instincts warned me not to.

And it was there, not weak, but simply… dormant.

_Sated,_ came a suggestion.

I shivered, looking at the perfectly innocent Mirror standing there, the nonsense inscriptions on it old and faded with age.

I turned, and I ran, and I didn't stop till I was out of the trapdoor.

I stood there for some time, still tying to shrug off what had been done to me, building my shields again with care. I had done this to myself, I corrected. It had been my idea… and however disgusted at Albus for keeping a device like that within reach of others, what had happened was my responsibility.

Still, I'd taken a risk… and exactly what it had given me, I didn't understand. The room had been the one I had spent a part of my life in, separated from my colleagues, observing and testing and theorizing about the oldest device our Ministry still possessed. Time's Arch. And the way the opponent of my reflection had stood had been somehow very familiar.

I had no answers, yet. But I should've expected that. In life, nothing is easy – and few things are harder than getting answers.

I decided that I had to be more active with the war. Not in the lacklustre way I had acted till now, barging in full of self-confidence. I had to be more careful. And along with everything else, I had to find a way somehow to bring the Harry of this time back. _He_ was far better equipped to handle this, for this was his own time, and this was the way Albus had once decided it was supposed to go.

I had to make his plans succeed – and after that, I had to make sure what had happened to me after the war wouldn't happen _this_ time. And after that – I wasn't sure there would _be_ an after, if I managed to alter my past.

It wasn't going to be easy.

Few things are.

Then again, I thought with a bitter smile, it was entirely possible that I was going to fail, and utterly destroy what Albus had spent decades and his life to achieve.

The worst things in the world, after all, start with the best of intentions.

--

**Author's Note****: **This had been a long wait, but now we're ready to finally finish the beginning of the story and jump into the middle part. Who knows, we might even get some answers.


	9. Interlude I: A Time of Treason

**Persistence**

_**Interlude I**_

**A Time of Treason**

--

_**Sins of the Saviour**_

_**The Life and Times of the Chosen One**_

_by Rita Skeeter_

The nation of Britain is in mourning today, for perhaps the greatest wizard in the last half a century has passed away. The Minister of Magic himself, Kingsley Shacklebolt, announced the shocking news in a statement yesterday evening. Within hours the news had spread like wildfyre throughout the magical world, resulting in mourning processions throughout the country.

A little surprising, perhaps, considering the fact that the Vanquisher himself had chosen to live largely outside the public eye for the past two decades. Or perhaps it only serves to show the extent of his influence in the magical society.

We all know the tale of Harry Potter, the Saviour, he who was chosen by destiny to vanquish He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the greatest Dark Lord in magical History. A story for romantics, seeped in wonders and tragedies, a tale of titans made only more breathtaking by the facts that every impossible bit of it is true. We all know about the Saviour's exploits, his fight against the Dark Lord and his minions while he still was but a child in the eyes of society. We know of his legendary prowess as a student, his feats of spellwork that left his peers and teachers alike speechless in wonder. We remember his victory against the Dark Lord, a story old in the telling by many of his friends who had found in his example their own inspiration, had found courage to take part in his fight.

It is irrefutable that he was a wizard as great as any one may care to name. He saved our nation, young and almost single-handed. He is often compared to Albus Dumbledore, a figure who had once cast on our society a shadow as far-reaching as Harry Potter has had in these years.

And this comparison, some believe, may hold far more than simple analogies of power and influence. This may hold a truth far deeper.

Harry Potter was born to James and Lily Potter, in the year 1980. He was orphaned only fifteen months later, his home destroyed and his parents murdered in the hands of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. And yet when the Dark Lord turned his wand on the baby and cast the curse of Death, Harry Potter survived; and destroyed his attacker by some power yet unknown. This story is known. This story is legend.

And yet this is only a prologue to what we know of our Saviour, and the legend continues only after a decade-long pause. We know Harry Potter lived with his relatives for the first decade of his life, a period about which the usual biographies are strangely silent.

This humble reporter finds it strange that no proper investigation has ever been launched to probe into our saviour's home life through his formative years. An investigation that would have uncovered strange truths, about a boy strange and distant from his surroundings. A boy feared and shunned instinctively by his peers, to a degree not completely explained even by his secretive wizard status.

And this takes us to other examples, other wizards who had come before. Let us consider the sorcerer Albus Dumbledore instead, the one who, like Harry Potter, had found it in himself to fight and defeat the Dark Lord Grindelwald – a comrade of boyhood who had gone beneath the shadow of corruption. Let us consider our Saviour's nemesis, the Dark Lord Voldemort – whose very name still goes oft unuttered amongst us. Both of them were great wizards, it must be admitted. Both of them had gone above and beyond the boundaries that define magic to us – both had found power in places great and terrible, and both had moved themselves with purpose through others who could but bend before their greatness. Both bereft of parents, or nearly so, in their youth; both talented, both purposeful. Both feared for what they did and might have done. Both respected for their power.

History repeats itself, and it seems now that we have come full circle.

Who was Harry Potter, really? Shunned, feared, different from all others around him - who was he born, and who did he grow up to be?

Romantics hold him a hero, his life an example of what tragedies a man must bear. And tragedies have certainly not been scarce in Harry Potter's life, even after the most imminent threat to his life had been vanquished.

We certainly cannot forget the death of his family.

The summer of 2003, the last day of July. Harry Potter's best friends Ron and Hermione Weasley, along with his wife and their infant son had gathered in a private birthday celebration for our saviour.

None of them had lived to see the dawn.

A mysterious illness, the investigation had revealed, a magic no wizard could unravel. A virus, it has since been said, that simulated the symptoms of incredibly rapid aging process. And even Harry Potter, himself present in the gathering and the only one to remain unharmed, could offer no answer. In fact, no question about the matter had ever been raised publicly by the Wizengamot, and every single query from the press had been rebuffed. Understandable, perhaps. Grief does not make men amenable to relive their moments of trauma. And the saviour had grief enough.

And yet the question hangs before us unresolved. What magic had killed them? How complex must it have been, to have foxed every wizard and witch the Ministry had assigned to the case.

How complex it must have been, this aging curse, to have foxed Harry Potter himself, who had even then worked with the Department of Mysteries, and have since headed their Temporal Division.

The deaths are still a mystery, and now that the only _witness_ to them is dead, perhaps so they shall always remain.

We cannot ignore the strange analogies here; analogies that stretch sinister, towards titans of the past - the wizards who had helped shape the time we live in. Albus Dumbledore is one of them. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is another.

Harry Potter, indubitably, is another.

They were the ones that made our world. Through power and influence and the allure of their vision they had taken us and molded us. We have fought for them. Death Eater or Auror – Light or Dark – we have died for them.

Is it fate, then? Fate, that dictates we – the ones not gifted, not given the vision and the strength to reach beyond what is offered to us – must bow before those who are, must live and die at their sufferance?

Or is it our own cowardice that holds us back?

Harry Potter was our saviour, we all agree – we must agree. Yet our vision of him as the great man he had been has to be investigated further, for the truth must out.

And it will.

In each installment of this report you shall see the truth that had been hidden from us for so long. A story of betrayal and deceit, of murder and merciless pursuit of power.

Albus Dumbledore had led us through the turbulent times of Grindelwald, towards his vision of a world some would call utopia, others a foolish ideal. Lord Voldemort, also, had his vision of remaking our world into a shadow of what we had once been, a world where purity of blood decided everything.

We have complained against such intrusions. We have protested. But under all pretense, beyond all illusion, always we have been _led_.

We have been complacent. We have been even _relieved_, to be subjugated so. We have been deserving of every inch of of mindless _slavery_ that had been heaped upon us.

With Harry Potter's death, an era ends. An era of wizards with power unmatchable, but also an era where the strong suppressed the weak with ruthless efficiency.

It is time to make a new world.

Let us hope that we survive it.

--

"What a load of bull," the heavyset man snorted as he glanced through the article. "You really think it's going to have any effect?" His plain black robes fluttered in the chill winds, and he wrapped his tight against his chest, shivering. His companion didn't answer, looking at the frost lining the road, white in the fading afternoon sunlight.

"Well? Do you?" The wizard persisted.

His companion gave him a glance, as cold as the wind that breezed through the deserted road. "It's not _your_ place to question the master, Francois."

"Well, as _I_ see it, somebody has to! Or are you forgetting that _my_ life's on the line here, too?" The burly wizard snapped. "What the fuck is this – this, _article_ – supposed to do?"

His companion sighed, his exasperation plain.

"Young people," the wizard replied, "like you, Francois, always think of revolution as something bloody and... glorious. It is not."

"I don't see what _that_'s got to –"

"You don't see, _at all_," his companion interrupted. His face twisted, the lines of age prominent, a map of time's passing. "The bloodbath that you wish for, Francois, is something I – and the master would agree – consider better avoided."

"We're all entitled to our opinions, I'm sure," the younger wizard sneered.

His companion shook his head. "The killings are not what makes a revolution succeed, Francois. You need to _plan_ for it, plan for _decades_ if necessary, waiting for the right moment. You've been with us for, what, six years? This plan was in motion before your father was _born_."

"And yet I don't know half of what you are going to do. Except – except this – mockery –" the wizard crushed the newspaper in a ball with his hands. "The Ministry is in chaos! Suspicion, recriminations – everybody at each other's throats – we could strike now and remove each and every one standing in the way! Why all this bloody waiting?"

"Half." His older companion snorted. "Don't flatter yourself. You don't know a tenth of what our master plans, Francois. None of us do. It's not a matter of trust. It's a matter of care, and the master is always meticulous. We know as much we need to know."

"I still don't see what bribing the reporter was supposed to achieve," Francois shook his head. "She writes nothing but gossip and slander. She's a – a _muckwracker_. She's nothing."

"She's useful. People are gullible, and she has a rare talent of rendering even the most ridiculous accusations somewhat believable." The old wizard smiled. "Imagine what she can do with the _truth_."

"You didn't answer my question."

"No, I suppose I didn't." A smile, head a little inclined. "She's just another piece of our campaign. Harry Potter was a great national figure, and his presence itself gave people a sense of... safety. Do you see?"

Francois said nothing, listening intently.

"And now he's dead. And there are things we plan on dragging into the light – secrets that's been suppressed by the Ministry for years. Britain is confused, right now. We aim to channel that into anger, by pulling and prodding at all the right places. We'll take away all their delusions of safety, Francois; we'll take away all the lies they tell themselves to find a little peace." The wizard smiled. "A difficult task, but we have planned long."

"I don't like this waiting. The Ministry is confused right now – nobody knows who killed the bastard, or how. But they will regroup soon." Francois shivered as the chill wind fluttered his robes.

His companion shook his head. "The plan is going smoothly enough. They won't have the time. Two months, three at most, and then – "

"And what _will_ we do, when all of it's done?" Francois asked, quietly.

"Britain will be a tinderbox." The sun was setting, and the old man looked at the red western sky. His lips twisted at the corners in a little private smile. "And we will strike the match."

--

**Author's Note****:** An interlude, because I think we've all been curious about how things were getting on in Harry's own world. There will be one or two more in the course of the story. I've also aimed to clear up some of the muddled backstory with this.


End file.
